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THE 






HILL DIFFICULTY, 



AND SOME 



EXPERIENCES OF LIFE 



THE PLAINS OF EASE 



WITH OTHER MISCELLANIES. 




BY GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D. 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN WILEY, 161 BROADWAY, 
AND 13 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 

1849. 



w 



5 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 

GEORGE B. CHE EVE 11, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



THOMAS B. SMITH, STEREOTYPE R, ROBERT CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 

216 WILLIAM STREET, N. Y. 112 FULTON STREET. 



PREFACE. 



In a great forest, when Spring, Summer, and Autumn 
have renewed and finished then: work, the leaves that fall 
off are never lost, but still have many uses. They may 
pass, though trodden under foot, into the life of brighter 
and fresher leaves, although they possess within them no 
power to reproduce a tree. Thus our thoughts, aban- 
doned to the world, may do some good, provided a good 
nature is in them, and not the depravity and death of our 
moral nature, even though they may seem to have no 
great active power, except merely to weave a part of the 
common mould where mind is nourished. Still, if of a 
pure moral tendency, they may have a good share of influ- 
ence in producing another fresh and vigorous foliage. On 
this ground, any right-minded Pilgrim through our world 
may be pardoned for the publication of a Book of Leaves. 

If they are only leaves, so they be pure leaves, they can 
do no harm. If efficacious seeds are found within them 
and among them, although these be not of much note at 
present, yet possibly they may grow the better and more 
surely for not being noticed, in some minds on which the 
leaves have fallen. 

We cannot help thinking ; and we are ever influencing 
others by our thoughts ; for our accustomed thoughts form 



IV PREFACE. 

our character, and character is always active, for evil or 
for good. It is therefore a Christian duty to use every 
opportunity and occasion of circulating Christian thought. 
All such thought in our world occupies a space that might 
otherwise have been forestalled and filled with evil. If 
the work have aught of good in it, the Spirit of grace 
Divine can make it active and productive. May that be 
granted, and its publication will not be in vain. 

New York, May 1, 1849. 



C ONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 
ALLEGORICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. 

PAGE 

THE HILL DIFFICULTY ; WITH THE JEWISH PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, 3 

THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. A LIFE ALLEGORY, . 27 

AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE, 49 

THE TWO TEMPTATIONS; AND THE DISPOSITION OF THEM, . 60 

THE LAKE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS ; A CHILD'S LETTER AND LESSON, 99 

THE WISDOM OF ANIMALS J A FABLE AFTER THE MANNER OF JESOY, 103 

DEACON GILES' DISTILLERY, 106 

DEACON JONES' BREWERY, 113 

THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS ; A WARNING TO RUM-SELLING 

GROCERS, 123 



PART SECOND. 
DESCRIPTIVE AND MEDITATIVE. 

notes of nature at saratoga, 133 

nature in the berkshire mountains, 137 

nature at rock aw ay, 142 

nature in a tropical voyage at sea, . . . . 145 
the discontented lady-bird ; a proverb illustrated, . .150 

secret of success in preaching, 153 

nature in the south of spain, 155 

malaga and the mediterranean, 160 

mdlton's correspondence, 169 

FEBRUARY IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN, 170 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
LOOKING UP THERE, AND DOWN HERE, 175 

RAKING WITH THE TEETH UPWARDS, 178 

HEART-LEARNING, .... . v . 180 

MORAL DAGUERREOTYPES, 182 

A GOOD OLD HYMN, 184 

READINGS BY THE WAYSIDE, AND AN EVENING'S CONVERSATION 

ON THE HUDSON, 186 

PRAYER AND FASTING, . 193 

FIXTURES OF CHARACTER, ...... . . . . . .196 

SIMPLICITY, . . . 200 



PART THIRD. 
CRITICAL AND SPECULATIVE. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER, . . . 203 

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER, 251 

THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE AND THAT OF IMITATION, . . 345 



PART FIRST. 



ALLEGOR&AL AND IMAGINATIVE. 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY: 



THE JEWISH PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 



Every man has a Hill Difficulty to encounter in his 
Christian life. We all march upwards, and we have to 
climb. There are a thousand expedients to avoid the neces- 
sity of climbing, but they are very vain, and all the way there 
is conflict and trial. But in proportion to the patient and 
persevering zeal with which the soul maintains and endures 
the conflict, will be the ease with which afterwards it shall 
be borne forward in the victory. At the summit of the 
Hill there are winged cars, in which you step, and are carried 
swiftly and sweetly onwards. Such is the power of Chris- 
tian habit. It is a Hill Difficulty at first, it is a winged car 
at last. " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they 
shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.-' 
"It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my 
way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and set- 
teth me upon my high places." 

The time of trial must be encountered. We will not 
say whether it lasts the life long, or precisely at what 
point the habits become ivings ; whether the cars at the 
top of the Hill are those which receive the soul at death, 
and cause it to glide through the air to the abodes of the 
blessed, or whether the movement begins this side the 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 



grave, by the top of the Hill being reached before death, 
and the airy flight of the soul beginning even in the body, 
through the great celestial power of peace with God, and 
a love and joy unspeakable and full of glory. We think 
Paul stepped into those winged cars before he put off his 
mortal tabernacle. And every Christian may do so, for 
God has made it possible. But it depends greatly on the 
manner in which the Pilgrim travels up the Hill, in those 
parts of the pilgrimage where climbing is necessary. " My 
soul followeth hard after thee ; thy right hand upholdeth 
me." There must be labor, intense labor. " Striving 
according to his working, that worketh in me mightily." 
That was Paul's experience. " So run I, not as uncer- 
tainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. I would 
that ye knew my conflict. Night and day praying ex- 
ceedingly." 

We say not, therefore, when the top of the hill is reached, 
or may be reached, but this we do say, that the Hill Diffi- 
culty is long, and the climbing of it is a great discipline 
for every soul. This also we say, that Christian habit, 
though difficult in the formation and establishment, turns 
into wings, and whereas at first the soul had to carry its 
habits forward with great difficulty and labor, at the last 
habit carries the soul forward. 

I had a sight of this Hill Difficulty lately, as in a trance, 
in which I looked, and saw a great variety of characters 
laboring up. There was a bright light at the summit, and 
a vast, dark, wild-looking plain at the base ; but so far as 
sight was concerned, the Hill seemed to me to constitute 
the whole of the Christian life ; for the top of the Hill, and 
the winged cars in waiting, were out of sight ordinarily, 
and only now and then I seemed to be raised where I 
could see them floating in light. But I watched with 
exceeding great interest the progress of the various multi- 
tude. Some were going up, some were going back. Some 
set out with great apparent zeal at first, but soon became 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. O 

tired, and turned away disgusted with the labor. I thought 
of the text, that the hypocrite will not always call upon 
God, and also of the text, " He that endure th to the end, 
the same shall be saved;" and also of that, " Ye have need 
of patience, and shall live by faith ; but if any man draw 
back, my soul hath no pleasure in him." 

Some seemed to take the Hill very hard, others more 
leisurely. Some disencumbered themselves of everything 
but what was absolutely necessary to a becoming appear- 
ance as Pilgrims, saying among themselves, We brought 
nothing into the world, and it is certain that we can carry 
nothing out ; others took an immense quantity of luggage, 
and various unnecessary burdens along with them. I 
thought of the text, " Laying aside every weight, and the 
sin that doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience 
the race that is set before us." Some laid in a great stock 
of provisions, and even of fresh water, for the top of the 
Hill, fearful that by and by they might find themselves 
destitute of everything to eat and drink ; others seemed to 
have little or no anxiety about the future, but just to get 
forward. I thought of the text, " Sufficient unto the day 
is the evil thereof," and also of our Lord's prayer, " Give 
us, day by day, our daily bread." And I thought of the 
text, " He shall drink of the brook by the way ;" for there 
was a stream of living water running down the Hill, by 
the way-side, from top to bottom, and there was no need 
of any one suffering from thirst, whose soul thirsted after 
God. 

Some of the Pilgrims were in plain russet garb — travel- 
stained and dusty, yet strong and useful garments, easily 
brushed, and fitted for a path over craggy mountains. 
There were others in elegant and costly dresses, with gold 
and pearls, and broidered array, which it cost a great deal 
of time and care to keep in the least order, and which 
greatly interfered with the progress of the wearers. In- 
deed, to see them thus arrayed for so laborions a pilgrimage 



6 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

seemed quite ridiculous. I thought of Peter's warning 
about the hidden man of the heart, and the ornament of a 
meek and quiet spirit, and I remembered also that beautiful 
remark of good Archbishop Leigh ton, that we must keep 
our loins girt up, and cannot wear our flowing robes here 
in our pilgrimage, for they will be dragged in the mire, or 
perhaps will entangle our feet in climbing ; but that when 
we get to heaven we can wear our long flowing robes 
without danger of defilement, for the streets of that city 
are pure gold. 

It may seem strange, but it is no less true, that there 
were some who made great provision for amusements by 
the way, thinking that it would be a dreary life if they 
had nothing to do but climbing. Sometimes they went so 
far as to club together, and hire companies of musicians, 
who could pitch a tent here and there, where a bit of table- 
land, with green grass, might be found among the crags 
of the Hill, as often perhaps as every Saturday night, and 
so enliven the pilgrimage. Out of these materials they con- 
trived to make up a kind of Christian Opera, which was 
thought to be good for low spirits. And besides this, they 
had various Tabernacular concerts, imitated from the plains 
below, and public readings of Shakspeare. It was said to be 
as great a shame that the devil should keep all the amuse- 
ments of life for his purposes in the plains, as that he 
should keep all the best music to himself, as he always had 
done. It was argued also, that if some of the same fun 
which they had in the plains were not carried up the Hill, 
and kept in exercise there, (only consecrated, of course,) 
people fond of the gayeties of life, and especially children, 
could not be induced to set out from the plains below, to go 
up the Hill Difficulty. It was argued also, that the Hill 
had been long enough, and too long, occupied only with sour- 
faced Puritans, with the whites of their eyes turned up, 
(see Macaulay's History of England) and speaking through 
their noses, and that it was high time there should be a 



THE PULL DIFFICULTY. 7 

sweeter, more accommodating and genteel kind of piety. 
Some thought that these things could better be managed by 
all for themselves, without need of any regulations, and that 
they might very well have dancing schools for the children, 
and French conversations to keep up their accomplishments. 
One lady remarked that for her part, she always, in travel- 
ling, took her Bible and Byron, and did not need anything 
else. There were many discussions about these things, 
and various opinions. 

For my part, I thought of Paul's instructions, " See then 
that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, re- 
deeming the time, because the days are evil : speaking to 
yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, sing- 
ing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." And 
I thought of the text in James, which some regarded as 
rather quaint, " Is any among you afflicted ? let him pray. 
Is any merry ? let him sing psalms." And I could not 
help thinking also of Peter, " Be sober, be vigilant : And if 
ye call on the Father, pass the time of your sojourning in 
fear." I thought also of the experience of Solomon, who 
sought upon a time to go up this same Hill Difficulty with 
men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the 
sons of men, musical instruments, and that of all sorts; 
and who, moreover, took up great possessions of great and 
small cattle into the Hill, and builded him houses, and 
planted him vineyards, and made him gardens and orchards. 
But he found out, after all, that that was not the way, but 
that all was vanity and vexation of spirit. And I heard 
him say himself, that a single handful is better with quiet- 
etness, than both hands full with vexation of spirit. Also 
I heard him say, that the laughter of the fool is as the 
crackling of thorns under a pot, and that it is better to hear 
the rebuke of the wise, than the song of fools. Also he 
said, that the house of mirth was the fool's heart's tavern ; 
and that, on the whole, sorrow was better than laughter. 
I am now to speak of a strange thing. There were 



8 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

here and there, at the sides of the way up the Hill, Patent 
Offices, where machines had been invented to take Pilgrims 
up without climbing ; not for the sick and feeble, the help- 
less and aged merely, but for all, without respect to class, 
character, or condition. There was particularly such an 
Office, much frequented 7 of late times especially, at the 
junction between the plains and the Hill Difficulty, at the 
very entrance upon the hill. There had been constructed 
there a great balloon, to avoid climbing, named Baptismal 
Regeneration, in which, by an ingenious chemical use of a 
little font of water, a very subtle light gas was manufac- 
tured to fill the balloon ; and then the adventurers in it, 
having been made to inhale the same gas, stepped into a 
car to which the balloon was attached, and were carried 
along quite swiftly at the start, half-floating, half-dragging. 
These adventurers all lost their lives in the end, unless 
they got out of the car, and took to the real pilgrimage, 
without the patent ; for, at a certain point in the journey 
there was a strong wind, that took the balloon out of its in- 
tended course, and the cars were dashed in pieces. But 
notwithstanding this, the patentees insisted on this being 
the only way of salvation. They, and they only, it was 
said, had received the patent, and been appointed for its 
sole management by commission from the apostles. It was a 
dreadful hallucination ; the more so, because it was adopted 
beforehand by a great many people in the plains, who felt 
very sure that they need give themselves no anxiety about 
getting up the Hill, as the balloon was always ready, and 
therefore, start whenever they might, there was no fear for 
them, nor any need of hurrying. 

Hard by this Office, and in league with the balloon sys- 
tem, there was another, kept by that son of Abraham who 
was by a bond- woman, born after the flesh ; he kept charge 
of Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her 
children. He persecuted him that was born after the 
Spirit, and in time past had thrown a great bar across the 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 9 

way of the pilgrims, making it a State-turnpike instead of 
a free road, and letting none pass but such as would pay 
tribute, and swear themselves subjects of the son of Hagar, 
and of Jerusalem in bondage. But the Lord of the Hill 
ordered the bar to be taken down, and all hindrances to be 
removed out of the way, declaring that all who were bap- 
tized into Christ had put on Christ, and were one in Christ 
Jesus, while those who had not this true baptism by his 
Spirit in their hearts, were none the better for the external 
rite of baptism. For he said that in Christ Jesus neither 
circumcision availed anything, nor uncircumcision, but a 
new creature, and that the sinner could not be justified by 
anything but faith. Moreover, he said that the son of the 
bondwoman should not be heir with the son of the free 
woman. And he commanded all the Pilgrims to stand fast 
in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, and 
not to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. 

The people of the plains sometimes went to law about 
these balloons, with another great party, that claimed the 
honor of having invented them long before, and of having 
the only right to use them. It was said that they belonged 
in the first place to the Pope of Rome, and that he having 
charged too high for the use of them, this second party had 
pirated the invention, and ever since the time of Luther, 
had combined with several States to put it at a lower rate, 
and for a long time likewise, made almost everybody come 
into it. Now, however, the combination between Church 
and State being much broken up, people were not com- 
pelled to employ the balloons as formerly, and great multi- 
tudes went up the Hill without them, well knowing how 
dangerous it was to trust in them. Moreover, of those 
who had been in the habit of manufacturing and of patron- 
izing the pirated invention, there were not a few returning 
to the old original balloon of the Pope, thinking themselves 
safer, on the whole, in that, and determining henceforward, 

if they must use either ? to abide >y the real Simon Pure. 

1# 



10 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

It was said that Simon Peter himself had given it with his 
own hands to the Pope, and a great many Tracts for the 
Times were written to prepare men's minds for a return to 
the general use of it. After the year 1848, some said that 
if it were found necessary, Peter would undoubtedly give 
the Pope a second balloon to carry him back from Gaieta 
to Rome, and keep him suspended, untouched and intan- 
gible, in his temporal sovereignty. 

There was another patent higher up the Hill Difficulty 
than this, called Perfection ; where the souls of the pil- 
grims that were willing to undergo the operation, were 
fitted, or appeared to be fitted, with wings, after having 
been made to drink of a very penetrating and delicious 
cordial, entitled self-esteem. This cordial was made up, 
in part, out of the elements of past experience, kept till 
they were rotten ; after which, like the process of malt 
liquor, made out of pure grain, the cordial being distilled, 
got into the head and heart, and prepared its subjects for 
the most venturesome and desperate expedients with those 
artificial wings. Men could go with them to the edge of 
steep precipices, where they sometimes threw themselves 
off, and were dashed in pieces, or, in endeavoring to fly, 
stumbled and fell. Sometimes the fall broke off their wings 
without killing them, and then, after great labor and pain, 
they found their way back again into the right road upon 
the Hill, where, without any more patent wings, they 
went anxiously and sadly all their days. But it was a 
very dangerous delusion, and some who were carried away 
by it, forsook the Hill Difficulty altogether, and threw off 
all law, saying that they were not under law but under 
grace ; and so they set up in the wilderness an establish- 
ment something like the system of Communism or Fourier- 
ism, where they had all things common except the Water 
of Life, which was not to be had among them. 

Of those who were climbing up the Hill in the right 
way, there was a great variety of persons and of characters. 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 11 

Some moved confident and light-hearted, some went de- 
sponding and much burdened. Some went at a very snail's 
pace, some more swiftly, some seemed for a long while to 
be standing still. Some few shot upward with an earnestness 
and vigor most surprising and animating to look at. And 
what seemed a little strange, the more heart and strength 
were put into the work of climbing, the less the fatigue ap- 
peared to be felt. Indeed, the air grew more bracing and 
clearer, the farther they went up, and the prospect every- 
where began to be glorious. I thought of our Lord's 
words, " He that folio weth me shall not walk in darkness, 
but shall have the light of life." And sometimes there 
seemed to be a mist of light in the clouds above the Hill, 
in which, when the climbers at a hard part of the pilgrim- 
age looked steadily up, the words of that great promise 
were seen distinctly shining, " Blessed is the man that en- 
dureth temptation ; for when he is tried he shall receive 
the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them 
that love him." In very clear weather these glittering 
words could be seen from the top to the bottom of the Hill, 
and they were like a crown of blazing jewels, set upon a 
city battlement, and the sight of them sometimes prevented 
Pilgrims, even at the plains, from getting into the patent 
balloon cars instead of climbing, and sent them on, with a 
great impulse, rejoicing even in the discipline of trial, and 
struggling up the Hill. 

There were steady climbers, and there were inconstant, 
fitful ones. There were those of strong faith, who girded 
up the loins of their minds, and hoped to the end, and 
there were those who were constantly doubting they 
should never get to the top of the Hill. Some would go 
like the wind for a few days or hours, seeming as though 
they would outstrip all competitors. Then they would 
stop by the way-side to gather some rock-crystals, or 
would engage in some disquisition about wings, and some- 
times were tempted to step into the patent office, ancti 



12 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

lost much time in this way and that, instead of climbing. 
Others seemed to be continually thinking of their comfort 
in climbing, having some way got the notion that the 
proof of their progress lay in the sensible delight which 
they experienced in the work. This was a great injury 
both to their advancement and happiness. They some- 
times envied those patent wings, though they did not dare 
really to try them. I thought of David, when he was 
climbing, and was forced to come down upon his hands 
and knees, with the way so dark, moreover, that he could 
see no light ; and I thought if he had been in the habit of 
making his hope and his evidence to depend upon his com- 
fort, he would twenty times have given up in utter despair. 
But he cried unto God in the day of bis trouble, and 
climbed on, even when his soul refused to be comforted. 
He was still thinking of the next step. "From the end 
of the earth will I cry unto thee when my heart is over- 
whelmed ; lead me to the rock that is higher than I." 
Sometimes David himself said, " O, that I had wings like 
a dove !" But he never applied at the Patent Office. And 
when he really had wings, and was singing like a lark 
because of what God had done for him, he said he was a 
poor and needy sinner, whose only hope was that the Lord 
was thinking upon him. Blessed is the man that maketh 
the Lord his trust, and respecteth not such as turn aside 
to lies. Those that, like David, thirsted after God, rather 
than for comfort, and preferred a clean heart before a merry 
one, found comfort enough without thinking of it. I ob- 
served that when, according to David's experience, their 
souls in climbing labored hard after God, then they had 
also David's assurance of the right hand of God upholding 
them. 

The steady climbers of course made the surest progress. 
They went straight onward, and if a very rough place 
came in their way, such was the habitual directness and 
intensity of their zeal, such their habit of application to the 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 13 

pilgrimage, that almost before they had time to think 
whether there might be an easier way, they found them- 
selves entered upon the difficult, rough passage, without 
attempting to go round it. But these steady climbers had 
for their motto, " I will go in the strength of the Lord 
God ; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of 
thine only." And also this : " I can do all things through 
Christ who strengthened me." Their combined intensity 
and perseverance was the effect, under God's grace, of 
continued, strong, steady, Christian habit. It was like the 
impulse of a swift skater, the application of whose muscular 
energy has given him such power of impetus, that if he 
should attempt to stand still, the very habit of motion will 
carry him swiftly forward. These steady climbers had 
thus gained the power of a continued impulse, without 
relying on it. Their whole reliance was on Christ. 
" Without me, ye can do nothing." 

They made much use, unceasing use, of prayer. Prayer 
and God's Word, indeed, kept up a fire within them, that 
seemed to scorn the cold, the rain, the fatigue, without 
them. And it was observed, that while these steady 
climbers had great enjoyment by the way, they did not 
stop to ponder upon it, to luxuriate over it, as it were, but 
still pressed upward, always eager to advance. I thought 
of Paul's relation of some passages in the history of his 
own soul : " I count not myself to have attained or to have 
become perfect ; but this one thing I do, forgetting the 
things which are behind, and reaching on after those that 
are before, I press towards the mark of the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Indeed, according 
to the experience of another great old climber, who once 
slept in the Arbor on the Hill, in consequence of very de- 
light in pondering over his joy, and who for a season lost 
his roll in consequence of that sleep, it was observed that 
those who, even in a very clear frame of mind, began to 
sit down and delight themselves with reading their roll, 



14 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

soon grew confused again, and lost their place in it, or fell 
asleep and mislaid it. It was not by pondering their own 
experience, and delighting in that, but by pondering God's 
word, and delighting themselves in God, that they found 
the desire of their hearts, and went safely onwards. 
" Thou wilt light my candle," says David: " the Lord my 
God will enlighten my darkness. Thou wilt show me the 
path of life : in thy light shall we see light." 

Moreover, the best climbers did not compare themselves 
with one another's progresses, bat measured the Hill, and 
thought how far still they were from the top of it. On the 
other hand, a great many seemed to think that if they did 
but go as fast as their neighbors, they were in very good 
case, and had no occasion for anxiety. This evil was the 
source of a very slow advancement with many, who never, 
in consequence of this very thing, got to the top of the 
Hill, to the winged cars, as long as they lived, but were all 
their life-time subject to bondage. 

In the variety of character among the true Pilgrims, 
you might distinguish several prevailing forms, singularly 
separate and distinct, the work of particular individual 
undercurrents of temperament and habit, modifying the 
direct ideally perfect result of the workings of that One 
and the self-same Spirit, who divideth to every man sev- 
erally as he will. There were the brooding Pilgrims, bent 
down, and looking into self, sometimes so intent on this 
inspection, so absorbed in it, that they could see nothing 
else, not even the path before them, nor seemed to notice 
any of their fellows ; and in consequence of this brooding, 
they often stumbled up the Hill rather than climbed, but 
still more frequently thought they were advancing, while 
they were only standing still and groaning. They needed 
to look out of self up to the top of the Hill and the Lord 
of the Hill. And I observed that in this desperate brood- 
ing over self, instead of the consequence being a sympathy 
with others' distresses, they seemed to think only of their 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 15 

own, and fell into the imagination that the great weight 
and care of their own sins and sorrows unfitted them for 
any active part in helping others, or excused them from it ; 
which was a great mistake. I heard of one great Pilgrim, 
who once for a season was in danger of this habit, but 
afterwards by the grace of Christ, and by looking to Christ, 
got out of it, who exclaimed in a voice loud enough to be 
heard all the way down the Hill, No good ever comes of 
brooding ! 

There w T ere also the legal Pilgrims, looking to duties 
rather than Christ, as the others did to frames rather than 
Christ. The tendency of this was to injure, if not to spoil 
both their duties and their frames — both their works and 
their faith ; and in truth their ideas of faith were very 
much clouded and darkened, and their souls were kept in 
bondage. For they could not satisfy conscience, and yet 
they looked very much to that for justification and com- 
fort ; but this they could not find, without casting all, on 
Christ daily, and having him and his love as the spring 
and strength of duty, and receiving his pardon daily, as 
guilty and lost, but believing, trusting, loving, and obeying 
out of love. The havoc made with the comfort and fer- 
vor of the Pilgrims by this want of faith and love, and this 
legal resort to forms of duty as a kind of purchase-money, 
was very sad. They had a sort of measuring rod of Moses, 
by which they endeavored to graduate their steps and 
guage their progress, instead of walking by the Law of the 
Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. The Lord of the Hill had 
been at great pains to keep them from this evil, and had 
taught very clearly the difference between children and 
slaves, and had told them that in Christ they were chil- 
dren, and must walk in love, as dear children. " Ye have 
not," said he, " received the spirit of bondage again to fear, 
but ye have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby ye 
cry Abba, Father." 

It was evident that in many cases this difficulty grew 



16 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

out of the wron^ mould in which their views and habits 
had been run by defective human teaching. One of the 
Pilgrims themselves, who had had much to do in leading 
souls to Christ, once told me, of his own accord, that it 
often seemed to him, as if he, and many other ministers 
of the gospel, had too much imitated the example of Moses, 
who led his father Jethro's flock to the back side of the 
desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. 
But he said it was a cruelty to detain the flock of our 
Saviour in the dreary wilderness, before the thundering, 
quaking mountain. We are not come to the mount that 
might be touched, to blackness, and darkness and tempest ; 
but we are come to Mount Zion, to the City of the living 
God, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general 
assembly and Church of the first-born, to God the Judge 
of all, to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to 
the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than 
that of Abel. Moses, said he, is dead, and the Lord has 
buried him, and no man knows of his sepulchre to this day. 
Let us not be his disciples, as the Jews foolishly boasted 
that they were, but rather be the disciples of our blessed 
Lord, whom God raised from the dead, and placed at his 
own right hand in heavenly places, as Head over all things 
to the Church. 

There were also the sympathizing Pilgrims, a very 
beautiful type of character, who, whatever might be the 
difficulties they had to encounter in the way, took always 
a deep interest in those struggling around them. If a fel- 
low-Pilgrim fell down, they were at his side in a moment. 
You could never hear them speaking evil of any man, and 
they had such a loving charitable judgment, (so long as 
they did not really know evil of any man) that it was 
sweet to see them. There was a great deal of scandal 
and gossip on the Hill, among some, whom Paul in the 
Directory had described as " working not at all, but busy- 
bodies, idle, and tattlers, and speaking things which they 



THE HTLL DIFFICULTY. 17 

ought not." These would often get together and make 
terrible work with other's reputations, having a curious 
kind of Dorcas' societies for tearing clothes, not for making 
or mending them ; and yet with all this, they were very 
severe upon the concerts and other things which some other 
of the Pilgrims patronized. The truly charitable Pilgrims 
did their best to put a stop to all scandal, and if their 
example had been followed, there would have been no such 
thing. They prayed much for all that were upon the Hill, 
and helped others to grow in grace, and their tenderness to 
the poor and feeble was lovely to behold, and also to those 
who had gone astray. They might sometimes be heard, 
while climbing the Hill, repeating to themselves the pas- 
sage, " Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." 
They also made much of Paul's injunction, "to lift up the 
hands which hang down, and the feeble knees ; and make 
straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be 
turned out of the way ; but let it rather be healed." It was 
very evident that the more they were interested in others, 
the happier they were in themselves ; and though they took 
so much time for these acts of kindness and love in helping 
others to climb, yet they seemed themselves to make an 
easier and more rapid progress upward than those did who 
seemed to be thinking solely of their own climbing and 
comfort. Those who forgot self, found self by the way, 
but those who sought it lost it. 

There were also the singing and rejoicing Pilgrims ; but 
these too would sometimes be brooding, and sometimes 
sympathizing; those that were always light-hearted were 
apt to be very superficial ; and indeed, unless they had 
sometimes gone down into the depths of a gloomy experi- 
ence themselves, they could not tell what to make of it in 
others. But when the Pilgrims were in those depths, it 
was a pretty hard thing to sing ; the utmost they could do 
sometimes, was to groan and pray. They had many 
sweet melodies, which, when I heard, I wondered that any 



18 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

who had been taught of God with a heart-relish for those 
celestial songs and harmonies, should ever experience such 
an " itching ear," as some among them did, for the more 
fashionable music of the plains below. Here and there 
from out the craggy passes of the Hill, you could some- 
times hear strains like the following from a little band of 
Pilgrims, all singing : 

On wings of faith ascending, we see the land of light, 
And feel our sorrows ending, in infinite delight. 
'Tis true we are but strangers, and pilgrims here below, 
And countless snares and dangers surround the path we go. 
Though painful and distressing, yet there 's a rest above, 
And onward still we 're pressing, to reach that land of love. 

Sometimes one choir of Pilgrims would stand and sing 
as follows : 

Long nights and darkness dwell below, 

With scarce a twinkling ray, 
But the bright world to which we go 

Is everlasting day. 
Our journey is a thorny maze, 

But we march upward still, 
Forget these troubles of the ways, 

And reach at Zion's Hill. 

Then another choir would take up the strain, higher up 
above, answering and echoing : 

See the kind angels at the gates 

Inviting us to come ! 
There Jesus, the Forerunner, waits, 

To welcome travellers home. 
There on a green and flowery mount 

Our weary souls shall sit 
And with transporting joys recount 

The labors of our feet. 

Then both choirs together would break out in chorus 
with the close of the melody : 

Eternal glory to the King 

Who brought us safely through ! 
Our tongues shall never cease to sing 
- . And endless praise renew. 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 19 

The effect was enchanting, sometimes, of a bright still 
night, to hear these melodies echoing from point to point, 
among the windings of the way ; and it seemed as if you 
could see the wings of listening angels in the moonlight. 

I observed that there was great need of watchfulness in 
going up the Hill, because there were so many ways that 
wound round it, instead of going straight up, as did the 
King's highway ; and these by-ways went off 1 sometimes so 
gradually from the straight way, that a careless soul might 
easily be decoyed into them without being at first aware. 
There was one path especially, that was exceedingly de- 
ceitful and dangerous, which was called Spiritual Pride by 
those who knew its character, though that was not the 
name given to it generally, which, however, was of such a 
nature, that the fastest climbers, when they fell to thinking 
complacently about their progress, instead of looking and 
pressing on above, were most in danger of being turned 
aside in it. There was great need of watchfulness, to pre- 
serve humility, and have the soul kept from many snares 
that were laid for the feet of the unwary. 

There was another corresponding by-path, but quite on 
the other side of the way, called Sacred Formalism, a road 
that wound like a corkscrew, with chapels every few steps, 
and things called altars between, and crosses at every 
corner, and in fine, so many sensible objects, and prescribed 
devotions, that the attention of the souls of the Pilgrims 
who ran into that way was quite turned from that which 
is within to that which is without. They looked away 
from the end of the Hill, and from their progress upwards, 
to this corkscrew of things done daily, in which many 
rested, just as if it supplied the place of salvation, or as if 
salvation consisted in it. When this was the case, those 
who were thus deluded were kept all their life going round 
and round, always working, but never getting a step up- 
wards, and yet always imagining themselves, if not at the 



20 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

very top of the hill, yet close upon it, and in the only sure 
way to reach it. This was a very terrible delusion. 

I observed that the only safe way, the only security 
against being turned aside into any of these by-paths, was 
in a watchful keeping as near as possible to the very 
middle of the King's highway. It was said that the turn- 
ing away of the simple should slay them, but that God 
would instruct and teach in his own way, and guide with 
his own eye those who trusted in him, and that those whom 
God taught the way of his statutes, would keep it unto the 
end. It was said for the encouragement of the Pilgrims that 
God was good and upright, and therefore would certainly 
teach sinners in the way, that he would guide the meek in 
their judgment, and teach the meek his way, and that all 
the paths of the Lord were mercy and truth to such as kept 
his commandments and his testimonies. So for this pur- 
pose a great many good prayers were put into their lips, 
prayers that came from David's heart by the guidance of 
God's Spirit when he was on the Hill and exposed to 
danger; prayers and promises together, as in the 25th 
Psalm, and that great prayer in the 139th. " Search me 
O God, and know my heart ; try me, and know my 
thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and 
lead me in the way everlasting." The Pilgrims were 
made to know, that if there were any wicked way in 
them, it was not possible they should go on straight in God's 
everlasting way ; so daily they must bring their hearts 
and ways to God to be corrected, and by him must be 
kept in the right way. 

For this there were great instructions given, and a perfect 
map was furnished to all who desired it, before setting out, 
in which all the dangers of the way were put down, as 
well as an exact and accurate line of the true way, and 
many of the experiences which the Pilgrims in it would be 
sure to encounter. There were many notes from David's 
experience, in regard to this map, and also respecting the 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 21 

snares, gins, and nets, that would be hidden, set, and 
spread by the wayside for the unwary. One of David's 
notes and prayers together was as follows: " Concerning 
the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me 
from the paths of the destroyer. Hold up my goings in 
thy paths, that my footsteps slip not." The Pilgrims were 
told to keep these instructions and this map in the very 
middle of their hearts, and not to let them depart from 
their eyes ; just as we say of a very precious thing lent to 
another, Don't let it go out of your sight at all, for a 
moment. It was added to this as follows : " Let thine 
eyes look straight on, and let thine eyelids look straight 
before thee. Ponder the paths of thy feet, and let all thy 
ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to 
the left ; remove thy foot from evil. My soul, wait thou 
only upon God, for my expectation is from him." 

There was another by-way, which one would not have 
expected to find running off from the Hill, the by-way of 
the strange woman. It was sometimes in one place, some- 
times in another, and therefore the more dangerous, 
especially in the twilight, in the evening, and in the black 
and dark night. Her ways had been described in the map 
before spoken of, as moveable ways, made such by the 
woman, that men might not know them, lest they should 
ponder the path of life. This danger had therefore been 
put down in the map more clearly than most others ; and 
it was said concerning that same strange woman — " Re- 
move thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of 
her house. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold 
on hell." The moveableness and swiftness of this way of 
sin and danger, and its temptations coming sometimes so 
unexpectedly, was one cause of King David himself being 
once snared by it, to his own dreadful guilt, distress, and 
almost ruin. He would have been destroyed by it, but 
for the wonderful mercy of God, who sent after him, and 
brought him back. Every Pilgrim on the Hill knew what 



22 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

had happened to David, and also to Solomon after him ; so 
that, while there was more warning on the Hill against 
this evil than when David and Solomon were climbing up, 
there Was also less excuse for those who gave way to it, 
for they did it against great light and knowledge. And 
there was, moreover, an inscription always flaming out in 
the sight of those who by God's grace had preserved their 
souls in much prayer and watchfulness, when they came 
near those places of danger ; a very solemn, awful, and 
forbidding inscription, in letters of such fiery, angry flame, 
and yet mournful withal, that it made the blood curdle : 
" He knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her 

GUESTS ARE IN THE DEPTHS OF HELL." 

All these by-ways ran in the enemy's country, a country 
full of all manner of evils and deaths. The paths that 
struck off into it were strewn with the skeletons of Pil- 
grims who had fallen there, and remained unburied. For 
it was well known as one of the laws of the Lord of the 
Hill, that "the man that wandereth out of the way of 
understanding shall remain in the congregation of the 
dead." And the congregation of unburied dead in the 
enemy's country was a terrible thing to witness. It had 
been said also, that there was no hope for those who left 
the paths of uprightness to walk in the way of darkness, 
whose ways are crooked, and they fro ward in their paths. 
In connection with this, the pilgrims were cautioned 
against leaning to their own understanding, and were told 
that the way of the wicked is as darkness, and that they 
know not at what they stumble. To all this it was added 
with great emphasis that " there is a way which scemeth 
right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of 
death" 

A good reason for these great and solemn warnings, 
especially the last, and a deep meaning in them, could be 
seen in the course of some who turned out of the way at 
those goings off, by spiritual pride and imaginary perfection. 



THE HILT, DIFFICULTY. 23 

It had been generally supposed that the house of that 
strange woman, whose house is the way to hell, going 
down to the chambers of death, was almost only in the 
plains below. But it was found that one of her " move- 
able" dwellings was also in those by-paths going off from 
the Hill, full of pretensions to holiness, to call passengers 
who go right on their ways. There was a pretence to a 
holiness so great and marvellous, that it released men en- 
tirely from the law of God, and set them free from all 
obligations, and that, they said, was the freedom of faith. 
Many unstable souls were beguiled by the accursed prac- 
tices of these teachers, and went into the house of the 
moveable woman. But the pilgrims could turn to their 
maps, and find this horrible reef of sin and danger, laid 
down most distinctly, in Peter, with the very beginnings 
of it in those boastful pretences of great holiness and free- 
dom. " For when they speak great swelling words of 
vanity, they allure, through the lusts of the flesh, through 
much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from 
them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, 
they themselves are the servants of corruption : for of whom 
a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 
For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, 
through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the 
latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it 
had been better for them not to have known the way of 
righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from 
the holy commandment delivered unto them." 

Some of the by-ways of this Hill were much frequented 
by demons. They staid, it is true, mostly in the plains 
below, where they electioneered for the owners of the bal- 
loons, when they could not prevent people from starting, 
at some rate, on the journey ; but still they came some- 
times, in great swarms, higher up, and set upon the pas- 
sengers up the Hill, for the purpose of sifting them, and 



24 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

finding weak spots where they might strike a dart through 
them. Peter, in his way up the Hill, encountered such an 
assault more than once, and it proved a perilous place in 
his pilgrimage ; but our blessed Lord prayed for him, and 
so his faith was not suffered utterly to fail. Job, it was 
well known, had terrible and repeated encounters of this 
kind, in the hardest part of his progress up the Hill, and 
Paul once and again was hindered in his way by Satan, 
and spoke from experience when he exhorted all Pilgrims 
to put on the whole armor of God, that they might be able 
to stand against all the wiles of the devil, and especially to 
take the shield of faith for quenching the fiery darts of the 
Wicked One. These darts the Adversary would sometimes 
shoot, suddenly and unexpectedly, from behind the crags 
that outjutted in some places over the way, and Pilgrims 
who walked carelessly received many a severe wound and 
injury. 

Now, when I had beheld all these things, and for the 
present was satisfied with looking, I bethought me that I 
would examine those Songs of Degrees, or goings up, in 
the Psalms of David, for I thought it probable he might 
have composed them on purpose for the pilgrimage up this 
very Hill. There are fifteen of them, and I found in some 
of them very great internal marks of the Hill Difficulty. 
In the first, the Pilgrim seems to be just setting out, or 
thinking of setting out from the plains. " Wo is me, that 
I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar !" 

In the second, he has a clear view of the Hill, and 
encourages himself greatly with God's promises in setting 
out. " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. My help 
cometh from the Lord. He will not suffer thy foot to be 
moved. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy 
coming in forever." 

In the third, he rejoices in being in the way up the Hill, 
and is assured that he shall see Jerusalem, and stand 
within the gates of the great city. 



THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 25 

In the fourth, he begins to meet with some of the diffi- 
culties, but lifts up his soul to God, and waits upon him 
for mercy and deliverance. 

In the fifth he has evidently had some wonderful escapes 
from the dangers of the way, and blesses God for his 
deliverance. 

In the sixth he has seen the fate of some that turn aside, 
and contrasts it with the happiness of those who trust in 
the Lord, and cannot be removed, but are as Mount Zion, 
which abideth forever. " As for such as turn aside into their 
crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the 
workers of iniquity, but peace shall be upon Israel." 

In the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, there are various 
and beautiful experiences, some of them applicable espec- 
ially to whole households on pilgrimage. 

In the eleventh there is a great and precious spiritual 
experience, common to all true Pilgrims up the Hill. 

In the twelfth the singer seems to be very near the top, 
and as quiet as a weaned child. And that was David's 
quietism. 

In the thirteenth he has great foretastes and prophecies 
of the glorious rest of God forever. 

In the fourteenth he steps into the winged cars with a 
company of fellow-pilgrims, and enjoys the sweetness of the 
Christian alliance, the unity of love. 

In the sixteenth he praises God, and exhorts to the ob- 
servance of night, as well as day- worship in the sanctuary, 
and blesses all the servants of the Lord. 

The Jewish Rabbi, Kimchi, says that there were fifteen 
steps by which the priests ascended into the temple, and 
on each of these steps they sang one of these psalms. 
This was all the approximation that many of them ever 
made towards the experience of a Pilgrim's Progress. 
Then I thought that those who now go back to Judaism, 
and set up again a Jewish priesthood and a temple- worship 
in the place of Christ's own ministry of the New Dispensa- 

2 



26 THE HILL DIFFICULTY. 

tion, are likely never to know anything more of the Pil- 
grim's Progress than those fifteen stone steps. For he 
only is a true descendant of faithful Abraham who is one 
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the 
spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, 
but of God. The Galatians, in the time of Paul, were 
going up those stone steps ; though they began in the 
spirit, they went about to be made perfect in the flesh ; 
they removed from the grace of Christ into another gospel 
of forms and ordinances, and of weak and beggarly ele- 
ments, whereunto they desired to be in bondage. But 
Paul declared that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision 
availed anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which 
worketh by love. He said that nothing would be of the 
least avail without a new creature, — the entire regeneration 
of the soul in Christ. That was the true Pilgrim's prog- 
ress ; — it was David's Psalms in the heart, and not on the 
fifteen stone steps of the temple. 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

A LIFE ALLEGORY. 



Methought I was writing upon the mystery of the 
judgment. The books seemed as if open before me, and 
my pen could almost transcribe their dread immutable 
records. But I was looking at the future through the un- 
erring telescope of the past ; through the mighty fact, that 
all of life is to be reproduced in the day of judgment, and 
then and there to constitute the material and ground of an 
endless and immutable decision. In this connection there 
came to my mind the remark of an eminent man of God, 
Mr. Cecil, that the way of every man is declarative of the 
end of that man. A prayerful man, for example, I said, 
will have a prayerful end. A prayerful man, a man whose 
life has been ordered by prayer, and filled with the habit 
of prayer, will be prayerful in sickness, and prayerful in 
death. He will possess a spirit of prayer, even when all 
the faculties of body and of mind seem departing. The 
habit of his life will assert its power, and come out triumph- 
ant in death, and there will be communion of the soul with 
the Lord Jesus Christ, even when all possibility of com- 
muning with anything of earth has departed. 

I remarked that a man's whole way through life, religious 
or irreligious, is developed at his end. Our life is as a book, 
in the leaves of which are written, for the most part, as with 
invisible ink, the processes of our real existence, the goings 
on of our inward, hidden being, the movements of real, 



28 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

unassembled, absolute character and motive. Our appear- 
ance in the eye of men, our actions with the world, our life, 
which the world notices, occupies but little of the writing 
in this book. By far the greater part is taken up with the 
processes of a life, which men do not, and cannot see, 
which God only sees fully and clearly, and of which we 
ourselves seldom read more than a page at a time. 

I had written thus far, and was proceeding, on the same 
train of thought, to show that every development of our 
nature and habits, every thought, wish, plan, feeling, and 
action of life, was a part of our way through life, prophesy- 
ing its end, and destined to come out fully, as constituting 
our character and determining our retribution at the judg- 
ment. I was passing on thus in my contemplations, when 
suddenly an invisible influence changed the direction of my 
thoughts, just as if an angel should stand at the brake of 
a railroad, where two trains intersect, and by an unseen 
movement of the lever should turn the cars from one direc- 
tion to another, the passengers knowing nothing of it. Just 
so, by a single text of Scripture, my train of thought was 
turned. "Whether it were an angel, ministering, that 
brought me the passage, or what unseen association, link- 
ing it with Mr. Cecil's remark, I know not; but under the 
guidance of my invisible conductor I passed on. The text 
was from Proverbs, the fifteenth chapter, twenty-fourth 
verse : — " The way of life is above to the wise, that he may 
depart from hell beneath." 

Here, said my invisible conductor, is your subject. 
Here is where Mr. Cecil's remark comes from God. All 
mankind are travelling in one of these two ways, and the 
way of each man shows plainly what his end will be. 
There is a way above and a way beneath. The way above 
is spiritual, prayerful, a way of faith and prayer. The 
way beneath is earthly, worldly, prayerless, a way of un- 
belief and insensibility, and carelessness. The way above 
is the way of a few ; the way beneath is the way of a 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 29 

multitude. The way above leads above, leads to Heaven ; 
the way beneath leads beneath, leads down to hell. The 
way above is the way of the wise ; the way beneath is the 
way of fools. 

Now, said my invisible conductor, waving this text be- 
fore me, as a kind of fiery banner, let us leave your meta- 
physics, and your tracing of the involutions of men's 
thoughts, and let us follow their ways, these two ways, 
there being no other but these two, out of this world into 
the eternal world ; the way above and the way beneath, 
the way to heaven and the way to hell. For this is just 
that which our Saviour said as plainly in other words, 
Enter ye in at the strait gate ; for wide is the gate, and 
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many 
there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, 
and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few 
there be that find it. 

We will take up these two ways, said my conductor, 
in a figure, or allegorical description, where they pass into 
two bridges, across the probationary tide of our existence. 
If you wish to interrupt me in the narrative with questions, 
you can do it ; but I shall show you very plainly the 
course of this world, and the meaning of the way above 
and the way beneath, and the reason and truth of Mr. 
Cecil's weighty remark, that the way of every man is 
declarative of the end of that man. 

The first of our two Bridges is the Bridge of Faith and 
Prayer. "We are crossing a roaring torrent. The passage 
is full of danger, for the surge beneath is certain destruc- 
tion to those who fall therein. This Bridge of Faith and 
Prayer is the only safe and sure way across it. This 
Bridge is narrow, although it is perfectly safe, and it is 
found abundantly wide enough for all who will enter upon 
it. In some places, indeed, it seems almost like a line, and 
from the shore it is never visible far, except that the 
entrance upon it is very plain and positive, and not to be 



30 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

mistaken. Sometimes, even to those who have entered 
upon it, it is almost imperceptible, except from step to step, 
except as the soul goes on, trusting. But always, if the 
soul will take one step, it shall see the next ; and if the 
soul run ever so fast, step after step instantly becomes 
visible. The traveller can never out-run faith, so as to 
walk without it, but there is always firm footing found, 
even though sometimes when the foot was lifted to go on 
there seemed at first nothing but air for it to tread in. 

Here I interrupted my conductor, and said to him. Your 
description reminds me of that passage in David, My soul 
folloioeth hard after Thee ; thy right hand upholdeth me, 
I suppose the right hand of the Lord often upheld David 
in crossing this bridge, when both hand and bridge were 
almost, if not quite, invisible. Indeed, said my conductor, 
the supports of the Lord are much oftener invisible than 
visible ; if they were not, if we could always see the Lord 
beside us, and feel, as with sensible evidence, his hand hold- 
ing ours, where were our faith, or the need of it, or the 
discipline of it ? But this narrow bridge is a bridge of 
faith and prayer. And whereas I said it could be seen 
from the shore but a little way out, this is because the life 
of every saint is a life hid with Christ in God ; and though 
it will be proved by its fruits of holiness, and is marked by 
a plain profession at the enterance, yet the secret source 
of it is not visible to the world and never can be ; neither 
can the daily secret course of it be visible, no otherwise 
than as a hidden stream is visible by the greenness and 
beauty of its banks. 

It is the Bridge of Faith and Prayer. A prayerful soul 
is always prayerful, but only because at particular and 
proper times it does nothing else but pray. Now this 
Bridge, though so narrow, and often so like a line in the 
air, is supported by strong piers from interval to interval, 
with places of refuge upon them, where the soul may stop 
for a season in safety, and take breath, and gather strength 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 31 

and wisdom to go over the next interval, trusting in God. 
These piers and refuges are places of prayer and seasons 
of prayer, in which the soul that is crossing often feels as 
if it would like to stay for days and weeks and months 
together, and never be obliged to step forth from them to 
trace the difficult and dangerous line of the passage. And 
this is a good feeling, as a foretaste of that rest which 
remaineth for the people of God, when prayers, and toils, 
and dangers shall be ended. But it is not a good feeling, 
if it keeps the soul back from duty. It was a good feeling 
which prompted Peter to say, If thou wilt, let us build 
here three tabernacles ; and there Peter would have loved 
to dwell with those radiant forms forever ; but it was not 
a good feeling when it made Peter forget a world lying in 
wickedness, and when it permitted Peter to tempt our 
blessed Lord away from his path of suffering unto death. 
So it is good for the soul to love its safe resting and sweet 
nestling, as a bird, in God ; but it may possibly love to 
abide with God in such a way of sensible comfort as to be 
kept from pursuing the path that leads to God. 

These places of rest in this world are like Christian's 
Arbor amid the Hill Difficulty ; we cannot abide in them, 
for the refuges of prayer were not built for our indolent 
abode, or for our heaven upon earth, but as places where 
we may gain glimpses of heaven to encourage us onward, 
and strength for duty while advancing. So on we must 
go, tracing the next interval, there being no rest but 
beyond the roaring torrent, in those sweet fields, drest in 
living green, where everlasting spring abides, and never 
withering flowers. There we may rest ; but while cross- 
ing the tempestuous flood of life, we may not stay, even 
in the place of prayer, longer than to get strength for the 
next interval of duty. And so the soul must go carefully, 
watchfully, from prayer to prayer ; and doing this, the 
spirit of prayer will be increasing continually. 

There are some parts of this Bridge commanded or over- 



32 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

looked more advantageously than others by the great 
adversary of souls, the god of this world, where sometimes 
the fiery flaming darts of him and his crew come flying 
in upon the Pilgrim in such sort, that even with the shield 
of faith he has much ado to quench them. Here he has 
to fly as nimbly and swiftly as possible from refuge to 
refuge, from prayer to prayer, and perhaps to be a long 
while praying and a little while crossing, prayer itself being 
possibly his main duty. And indeed the place of prayer, 
when the soul is truly laboring there and fervent, is always 
the place of safety ; and the difficulty with most Pilgrims 
is, that that they do not spend time enough in it, hurrying 
in and out confusedly, sometimes stopping where they 
should not, and sometimes not abiding where they should, 
and so giving Satan an advantage. It is a great thing to 
know how to use the weapon of All-prayer in this pilgrimage, 
and to know the worth and power of it from experience. 

As to the narrowness of this Bridge, it seems beforehand 
much narrower than afterwards it is found to be, when 
once there is faith enough to start upon it. Some have 
been so greatly terrified and deterred by the straitness of 
it, as to say beforehand that they never shall be able to 
travel in such a way, and so they never set out ; but the 
reason why it seems too narrow is because their own souls 
are so wide with the vanities of this life, wrapping them 
up and hanging about them. When they have once set 
out, it is found to be broad enough, not because it is not 
really so narrow as they imagined, but because their own 
earthly desires and views are narrowed, while their 
heavenly ones are expanded. Their heavenly desires and 
wants are found to be as wings at their shoulders, lifting 
them up, so that a mere touch of the foot upon the earth 
is enough to spring them forward on their passage ; 
whereas their earthly desires, if encouraged and attended 
to, make their feet so broad and heavy, that the whole 
bridge is not wide enough to tread upon. And indeed, 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 33 

they are often thus so burdened that they cannot lift one 
foot after another. 

Let the soul once set out upon this Bridge, truly, 
heartily, and it becomes wider, easier, more secure, at 
every interval. Gradually the piers themselves seem to 
stretch out, enlarge, and come nearer to one another, till 
at length they fill almost the whole space, and become 
places of rest while the soul is following hard after God, 
and even while it feels faint in pursuing. The soul more 
and more clearly and delightedly sees the foundations of 
the Bridge, that it is built in God ; and feels its stability, 
its security, its certainty, in the experience and increase 
of that faith, which is the substance of things hoped for, 
and the evidence of things not seen. In this is fulfilled the 
declaration, that all believers, after they have believed, 
are sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the 
earnest of their inheritance until the redemption of their 
purchased possession in Christ, until they get past the 
Bridge and have entered into heaven. With some, this 
earnest of the inheritance beforehand is larger and richer, 
but always it is glorious. 

But the rest or refreshment of the Christian life not 
being the object for which this Bridge was built, neither is 
that the object of the soul in entering upon it. Obedience 
to God is the great business of the Christian's life, and if 
that be the Christian's anxiety, peace and happiness will 
follow ; but whether it follow or not, the Christian's duty 
is the same, to trust God, and obey. This is sweetly 
expressed by Baxter : 

" Lord it belongs not to my care 

Whether 1 die or live ; 
To love and serve thee is my share, 

And this thy grace must give. 
If life be long, I will be glad, 

That I may long obey ; 
If short, yet why should I be sad ; 

That shall have the same pay V 

2* 



34 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

Now in proportion as duty and not rest becomes the great 
object of the soul, or holy usefulness and not mere enjoy- 
ment, in that proportion there will be rest and happiness ; 
rest is found and experienced by such a soul, when another 
soul, that is seeking very anxiously for rest, but does not 
think so much of duty, misses of it. They that seek it for 
itself are not apt to find it ; while they who seek to get 
forward by it, who seek it for God, and seek God in it, 
and the fulfilment of duty, find it in abundance. 

Moreover, our blessed Lord has said, Come unto me, 
and I will give you rest ; and it is not alone in heaven that 
he gives it, for there must be the beginning of rest in him 
even in this world, or there can be no such thing as rest in 
heaven. And all along this Bridge of Faith and Prayer he 
has provided and appointed places of wonderful refresh- 
ment, where he himself comes down and sits with the 
Pilgrims, gathering them around him, and giving them 
bread and wine, and holding interviews with them, which 
are a stay and support to the soul through all. the journey. 
Yea, in the strength supplied by one such interview, 
rightly used, they are prepared to hasten on with a great 
and happy impulse. And their hearts often burn within 
them, not only at such interviews, but while they remem- 
ber what he said, and how he walked and talked with 
them, and expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the 
things concerning himself. 

The Sabbaths, as God has appointed them, are sweet 
refuges and refreshments to the soul upon this Bridge. 
Yea, they often seem as if they were the very days of 
heaven — angels' days rather than man's — they are so 
heavenly and precious. The soul may have been travelling 
in six whole days of rain, but in these Lord's days there 
always will be seasons of fair weather, gleams of glory, 
and bright shadows of true rest. They are like stars, or 
shining lustres, hung at intervals all along a dark way. 
The soul that loves them and marks them, walks in their 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 35 

light all the week, and measures the way to heaven by 
them. 

This Bridge is itself a path of light from beginning to 
end, although sometimes, as we have said, they who are 
travelling on it can see only the next step before them. 
But this is not any fault of the way, but generally an im- 
perfection of faith ; though a soul trusting in God will be 
satisfied and happy if it can see step by step in the path of 
duty, even if all around it there seems to be the very 
Valley of the Shadow of Death. The whole span of the 
bridge is really a line of light from beginning to end ; and 
sometimes, in favorable weather, the soul can see clear 
across the flood, even where the line of light opens into 
heaven. Moreover, to those who are travelling, the light 
is constantly increasing ; according to that heavenly law 
fixed by the Maker of the Bridge, that the path of the just, 
as the shining' light, shineth more and more unto the per- 
feet day. Some travellers, contrary to this law, seem to 
carry a cloud with them, and to have dark and stormy 
weather almost all the way ; but this is often because they 
look into their own hearts for light, when they should be 
looking to the Saviour, and often because they seek more 
for comfort than Christ, but still oftener because they loiter 
by the way, and look behind them, at the things that are 
seen instead of those that are unseen. It is exceedingly 
desirable, and it is always a duty, for children of the light 
to walk in the light, as well as by the light, and to enjoy 
it within themselves, as well as to see it before them. 
Moreover, the Maker of the Bridge has himself said, I am 
the Way, the Truth, the Life. He that followeth me shall 
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. That 
is a beautiful expression— the light of life; it signifies 
something within, as well as without, an experience of 
light, as well as a sight of it, a living as well as a shining 
light. So in this experience, " unto the upright there 



36 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

ariseth a light in the darkness, 7 ' light within, even when it 
is dark without. So the Pilgrim may go on singing : — 

My soul, there is a Country 

Afar beyond the stars. 
Where stands a winged sentry, 

All skilful in the wars. 
There above noise and danger 

Sweet peace is crowned with smiles, 
And One born in a manger 
Commands the beauteous files. 
He is thy gracious friend, 

And (O my soul, awake !) 
Did in pure love descend, 
To die here for thy sake. 

If thou canst but get thither, 

There grows the flower of peace, 
The Rose that cannot wither, 

Thy fortress and thine ease. 
Leave then thy foolish ranges, 

For none can thee secure 
But One, who never changes, 

Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure. 

Henry Vaughan* 



FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT. 

Now notwithstanding all this, said my Conductor, there 
are very few Pilgrims seen upon this first bridge, in com- 
parison with the vast multitudes who have to cross the 
torrent. And it is because the Maker and Owner of that 
Bridge has put down the law also at its entrance : If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his 
cross daily, and follow me. There are many who would 
like the Life Everlasting, to which this Bridge is the only 
way, if they could have it without the self-denial, and the 
cross daily. And so the Lord of the Bridge has said, Ye 
will not come unto me that ye might have life. For strait 
is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, 
and few there be that find it. But wide is the gate, and 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 37 

broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many- 
there be who go in thereat. If they would come to Christ 
at the outset, they would find the first way, though narrow 
and strait, easy and pleasant; for Christ's grace would 
make it pleasant, and no man would have to travel it alone, 
depending on himself, but with Christ in company, casting 
all care on him, and receiving grace and strength from him 
daily. But they neglect Christ ; they go wrong at the 
very beginning, and the very beginning seems gloomy and 
difficult, because they are without Christ, and will not 
come to him. The very beginning of crossing this Bridge 
of life and happiness must be this very coming to Christ, 
and then every step of the way leads upwards, and is 
under his light, his guidance, his comfort. The way of 
life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell 
beneath. 



MANY THERE BE THAT GO IN THEREAT. 

There is another Bridge below this, broad, easy, in- 
offensive to the natural man, apparently safe, built by the 
god of this world, crowded with thousands upon thousands. 
Those who enter upon it walk not by faith, but sense, and 
nevertheless, can see but a step or two beyond them, and 
moreover are too busy with themselves and one another to 
notice the condition of the Bridge, which, after those in it 
have gone too far to get back, and even before, is full of 
dangerous holes and pitfalls, through which multitudes 
are constantly dropping out of the throng, and disappearing 
in the roaring surge below. Nevertheless, the throng rolls 
on, heedless, insensible, expecting to reach the land, but 
destined all to plunge into the billows. For this Bridge 
has no landing-place, but terminates abruptly, far out in 
the very depths of the flood, broken off suddenly ; so that 
the unsuspecting throng, just as fast as they come up to 



38 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

that point, are pushed off without possibility of recovery, 
the crowding multitude behind always crowding on, insen- 
sible, and not knowing what is incessantly happening to 
those before. Sometimes a dismal shriek rises from those 
who discover the dreadful termination a little before their 
feet slide, but it is too late; you hear the shriek, the 
plunge, and all is over. Still the crowd roll on, generation 
after generation ; whole families, and almost unbroken 
communities are seen together ; on, on, on roars the tide 
below, on, on, on, never ceasing, pours the living tide above, 
till down it plunges, in a fall more resistless than the 
cataract, surge after surge rolling to destruction. 

But, said I to my Conductor, how is it possible that all 
this ruin should go on and the multitude not know it, and 
so turn back, or refrain from a way that leads to certain 
perdition ? Alas ! replied he, they do know it, but in 
every individual case do not believe it in regard to them- 
selves, or else persuade themselves that they shall escape 
and come off safely, where the whole multitude otherwise 
perish. Besides, the infatuation of men thus hurrying, 
excited, in the Broad Way, has something of insanity in it ; 
for all men think all men mortal but themselves ; and 
though Death is among them on the Bridge, striking this 
w T ay and that ; and though they are told beforehand of the 
awful termination of the way, and how the Bridge was put 
up by the god of this world purposely for man's ruin, yet 
this makes no difference in their career. As fast as one 
drops through the Bridge, another steps into his place, and 
for those who get to the termination, not having dropped 
through by the way, there is no possibility of return ; they 
are brought into desolation as in a moment, they are utterly 
consumed with terrors, and their fall is without remedy, 
irrecoverable, final, in the overwhelming suddenness and 
anguish of despair. 

At the entrance to this Bridge there is no want of signs 
and warnings, instructions written and spoken, and some- 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 39 

times in a voice, the thunder of which may be heard even 
from the upper Bridge to the lower, and from one end of 
the Bridge to the other. There is that great warning in 
bright characters, The way of life is above to the wise, 

THAT HE MAY DEPART FROM HELL BENEATH. And VOU may 

both hear and read the great proclamation, Turn ye, turn 
ye, for why will ye die ! And there are sign-posts and 
messengers pointing direct to the upper Bridge, and show- 
ing the way, and entreating the multitudes to walk in it. 
Nevertheless, almost all pass on in the broad, beaten, lower 
way, though some few, even after entering upon it, turn 
back, and with great effort, regain the way that leads to 
the narrow Bridge above. For even upon the turnpike of 
the god of this world the Lord of the upper Bridge has 
stationed his messengers to warn those who will listen, and 
to tell them of their sure destruction if they go on. There 
is no want of the plainest, most explicit warning. 

Sometimes these faithful messengers have been thrust 
down, trampled on, and killed, in their work of mercy ; 
and often they have found it a desperate conflict to beat 
back the surge of ruin, and to regain, for those who listen 
to them, a footing once more of safety. But still they 
warn, they expostulate, they shout ; and sometimes a tone 
of startling power may be heard ringing through the whole 
distance of the Bridge, Back ! put back, for your life ! 
Flee from the wrath to come ! But, alas, the living tide 
rolls on, unimpeded, and if one undertakes to stem it, he is 
almost borne down, and some look on him as out of his 
senses, and some salute him with shouts of ridicule, 
although some others regard him with seriousness, and 
seem to wish him well ; and some there are who wish also 
that they too had resolution enough to turn back with him. 
Blessed is the man who finds his way back, and takes the 
upper Bridge, trusting in God for mercy. 

To make this easier, if a man will but turn, there are 
side landing-places and stair-ways, through which one may 



40 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

rise out from among the crowd, and find a footing back, 
even on the outside of the Bridge ; and over these places 
is also posted the warning, The way of life is above to 

THE WISE, THAT HE MAY DEPART FROM HELL BENEATH. And 

on the Sabbath days especially, men stand with the Book 
of Life in their hands, beseeching the multitude to stop in 
their career and turn back. And sometimes you may see 
large collections of people stopping and listening, quietly, 
and even solemnly ; but on Monday morning you will see 
nearly the whole of them hurrying on again as madly as 
ever with the crowd, and forgetful of all they heard and 
saw upon the Sabbath. 

This Bridge of Death is a covered bridge, covered over 
so as to exclude the light from Heaven, but filled with 
dancing, glaring lights, and at the sides built up with 
booths and shops, theatres and operas. In these places of 
refreshment and amusement, put up by the god of this 
world, the tide throng in and out, revelling as they go ; 
they have music and dancing, eating and drinking, and 
ten thousand forms and expedients of gayety and pleasure. 
The apostle Peter spake of these things in his time, when 
he said that the years past of our life " may suffice us to 
have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in 
lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquet- 
ings, and abominable idolatries. Wherein they think it 
strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of 
riot, speaking evil of you." Men are insensible of the 
flight of time amidst these absorbing pleasures and occu- 
pations, and not only often forget their mortality, but act 
as if they disbelieved it — as if they were to stay in their 
places of pleasure and business forever. But what is 
singular, and to a reflecting observer a very solemn pecu- 
liarity, they never come out at the same door, or in the 
same position, in these thronged chambers on the Bridge, 
at which they entered, but always farther on, farther on ; 
for each place of gayety lets out the throng at an advanced 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 41 

door and post of travel on the broad road. The multitude 
do not notice this. Sometimes, though in very rare in- 
stances, a young man looks about him, and notices that he 
is not where he was when he entered, but has gone singu- 
larly onward, even while he was in the midst of his gayety 
in the glittering halls of sin and folly. And sometimes 
this awakens him to a sense of his danger. But the multi- 
tude do not notice nor consider, nor care to notice, but dance 
on from theatre to theatre, from show to show, from folly 
to folly, encouraging, sustaining, animating, and leading 
one another onward. The force of example and fashion is 
almost omnipotent. 

And what makes it incalculably worse, and what, more- 
over, is very surprising, people meet with many persons in 
these shows at the sides of the Bridge, who profess to be 
travelling in the narrow way, and who say that no doubt 
they can go through these amusements to Heaven, and that 
the path thither is not so strait and narrow, by any means, 
as your gloomy fanatics would make it. But it was not a 
gloomy fanatic, but our blessed Lord himself, who said 
that the way was so strait and narrow. Nevertheless, 
these people contrive to hush their consciences, and en- 
deavor to serve God and Mammon ; and their example, 
wearing, as they sometimes do, the profession and garb of 
Christians, tends powerfully to prevent alarm on the part 
of those who might otherwise be conscience-smitten, and 
thus they support and encourage one another, and keep the 
Bridge, notwithstanding that it is the way of death, a scene 
of great apparent gayety and life. With many persons it 
seems to be regarded as sanctified, not by the word of God 
and prayer, as the apostle says our enjoyments should be, 
but by a bare profession of religion. 

Another thing which powerfully tends to keep this 
Bridge a scene of gayety and insensibility, though it be the 
way of death, is the vast quantity of what is called light 
reading, scattered all along for the amusement and tempta- 



42 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

tion of passengers. It is a material, even the best of it, 
which tends to divert the thoughts from anything serious 
or heavenly, and much of it is adapted, as it was intended, 
to set the passions on fire of hell. The god of this world, 
who governs the Bridge, keeps an immense, inexhaustible 
supply of it, in all shapes, for all tastes, habits and degrees 
of initiation. Immoral tales there are, which allure to 
vice, even while professing to depict its misery ; and de- 
scriptions that teach depravity, and surround it with all 
the coloring of romance, while merely introducing the 
reader to the knowledge of human nature. Many are the 
souls drawn utterly and fatally beneath the power of the 
Destroyer by these pictures of sin, both in prose and 
poetry, which have so much the greater power, by how 
much the mind that meets them is young and inex- 
perienced. 

All these things being so, said I to my Conductor, how 
is it possible that any persons, once entered on this Bridge, 
can ever be reclaimed or drawn back again ? It seems 
that without some miracle they must crowd on in an 
unbroken tide to ruin. If it rested with man only, 
answered he, it would be impossible ; but with God all 
things are possible, and nothing is beyond the reach of his 
grace. Nevertheless it is true, that persons who are ever 
drawn back from these scenes, after they have become 
habituated to them, are as brands plucked from the burn- 
ing. And it is with very solemn feelings that they look 
back upon their position, when they have regained a place 
of mercy, and entered on the way of faith and prayer. 
They who gain the upper Bridge, after having thus far and 
long ran forward on the lower, are great monuments of 
God's loving kindness and forbearance, of the power of his 
grace, and of the compassion of the Saviour. They were 
dead, but are alive again, they were lost, but are found ; 
and there is joy in heaven over them, the redemption is so 
great and glorious. 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 43 

At the very entrance of the way of life upon the upper 
Bridge, continued my Conductor, you may see affecting 
scenes. Sometimes dear families part there, to behold 
each other no more. One or two individuals perhaps enter 
on the narrow way, while the others hurry down to the 
great travelled thoroughfare. Sometimes all the members 
of a family but just one go in at the gate of faith and 
prayer, and that one strangely and awfully rushes down to 
the way of destruction. Sometimes the parents go in 
at the narrow way, and the children hurry on past it. But 
the prayers of the parents pursue them, and at every 
station on their own heavenly pilgrimage they look with 
anxiety, in hope that the lost ones may be found, and 
brought by Christ the Redeemer along with them, rescued 
from the way of death. Sometimes the children enter 
the blessed gate, while the parents pass on to the gate of 
destruction. And then the prayers of the children follow 
the parents. But in many, many cases, the separation is 
eternal. And always there are but few seen entering on 
the path of light, while millions on millions rush down to 
that of darkness. 

So roll on these two tides ; — faith in the one, sense in 
the other ; prayer in the one, prayerlessness in the other ; 
yearning after God and self-abasement in the one, neglect 
of God and self-dependence in the other ; trembling anxiety 
in the one, heedlessness, riot, and sport in the other ; hum- 
ble penitence in the one, hardness and an impenitent heart 
in the other ; the light of life upon the one, the darkness 
of the pit upon the other ; heaven at the close of the one, 
hell at the close of the other. O the tide of life ! the tide 
of life ! Solemn is the sight to a spiritual spectator, who 
sees its diverging ways, and the differing worlds into 
which it opens. Solemn is the sight to one who knows 
and feels that the tide of life is the tide of eternal habit 
and of character, advancing to the world of retribution. 

Here, said my Conductor, is the end of our allegory, 



44 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

and here we come back to Mr. Cecil's remark, that the 
way of every man is declarative of the end of that man. 
And here we run again into the track of your opening 
mood of thought, yea, we are far forward towards the con- 
clusion of that train of reasoning upon the judgment. 
We have reason to believe and know, that the book of life 
is the book of judgment ; not indeed the Lamb's Book of 
Life, but the book of our life, daily. As we live, so we 
shall be judged. We are indeed both developing and 
judging ourselves beforehand, by the way in which we are 
travelling ; the development and the judgment will be per- 
fected at the end. At whatever point in a man's char- 
acter the end comes, there he remains immutable, there 
he is judged. This is that great word in Revelation, He 
that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he that is filthy, 
let him be filthy still. But he that is righteous, let him 
be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 
At the great Harvest there will be the great Judgment 
of character, what are tares and what are wheat. And 
then the Husbandman Supreme will say to the reapers, 
Gather together the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn 
them; but gather the wheat into my barn. After the 
Harvest there can be no new development or change of 
character ; the tares cannot change into wheat, and the 
wheat can never become tares. 

All this is simply the way of a man's mortal life, 
demonstrated and made eternal at the end. The way of 
prayerlessness and unbelief is the way of death ; and an 
unbelieving, unpraying man now is daily living out the 
prophecy and judgment in regard to the end of his life ; 
daily bringing to its fulfilment the prediction of the 
Saviour, If ye believe not in me, ye shall die in your 
sins. After this there is no more curative element, or 
possibility of change. For men to die in their sins, is 
just to be cut down by the reaper Death, as tares. There 
they lie, cut down ; waiting for the angels ; no more 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 45 

growth, no more change ; nothing now but the arm and 
the cord needed, that is to bind them in bundles to be 
burned. 

Now, said my Conductor, let me add to the weighty 
remark of Mr. Cecil one more text from the Divine Book 
that gave him his heavenly wisdom : There is a way that 
seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the 
ways of death. This is that way ; this prayerless way, 
this way of worldliness and unbelief, this way of careless- 
ness in sin, this Bridge of Destruction, this Broad "Way ; 
and many there be that go in thereat. Nor does any man 
know how much further he shall travel that way, before 
he comes to its end. The pitfall may be even now just at 
his feet, waiting for a few more steps, or perhaps even one, 
through which he is to disappear from the throng, and fall 
forever. He may be close upon the end of his way, and 
even while he is thinking of an effort to return, yet 
deferring it a little longer, the end may come within that 
very period of procrastination. Because his feet have not 
yet slidden, there is no security for him against that decla- 
ration of God, Their feet shall slide in due time. Surely, 
thou didst set them in slippery places ; thou castedst them 
down into destruction. How are they brought into desola- 
tion as in a moment ! They are utterly consumed with 
terrors. 

Do you think, said I to my Conductor, that there is any 
peculiar meaning in that word bundles, as applied to 
the tares ? — Gather them in bundles to burn them, but 
gather the wheat into my barn. Why said he, there may 
be, if you choose, a very sad and solemn meaning, over 
and above what commonly meets the ear. It may mean 
that the wicked will be classified, and that evil will meet 
evil of the same form, and crime be associated with similar 
crime, habit with habit, disposition with disposition, in that 
outcast world after the Harvest, that world composed of 
the prayerless, the hopeless, the fearful, the unbelieving, 



46 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 

the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and 
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars. Bundles of each ! 
You know well that the tares, in the description of the Judg- 
ment by Christ, are the same thing with the chaff in the 
preaching of John for repentance, and that both are reserved 
unto fire unquenchable. The enemy that sowed them is the 
Devil, and he will carry his own harvest to his own home. 

On the other hand, he that goeth forth and weepeth, 
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with re- 
joicing, bringing his sheaves with him. A wheat sheaf is 
a beautiful, cheerful, grateful thing, emblem of life, sweet 
seasons, and abundance, reminding us to put up the prayer, 
Give us this day our daily bread. But a bundle of tares, 
withered, dry, fruitless, the mere material for a crackling 
fire, is a warning image ; lead us not into temptation, but 
deliver us from the evil one, the sower of tares, and the 
proprietor of fire unquenchable. If you are of the tares, 
when the harvest comes, nothing can save you from going 
to your own place. If you are of the wheat, then, when 
the universe is burning, you will be safe in the barn of 
your Father — the kingdom of your Father, where the 
righteous shine forth as the sun. 

Well, said I, the second part of your allegory is indeed 
solemn and sad, yet deeply instructive. But I wish you 
might close it with something sweeter, something rather 
like the first path of light, ending in heaven. 

Why, said he, what can I give you sweeter than Christ's 
own words, Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise 
cast out. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, 
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and 
my burden is light. Every dark description of sin and its 
consequences, every sad and solemn revelation of the world 
of retribution after Harvest, is meant to give power to those 
sweet invitations. Either you must hold to the one, and 



THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENDS. 47 

escape the other, or neglect the one, and endure the other. 
For, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so 
shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall 
send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his king- 
dom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and 
shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine 
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who 
hath ears to hear, let him hear. 

Yea, and you may hear other things if you listen atten- 
tively. You may hear the footsteps and the talk of beings 
of the invisible world more frequent than usual around 
you. You hear the Great Husbandman in his vineyard. 
He speaks to the dresser of it, Behold these three years I 
come seeking fruit of this fig-tree, and find none ; cut it 
down; why cumbereth the ground? And you hear the 
interceding answer, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I 
shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit, well ; 
but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. Perhaps 
last year this conversation was held concerning you. If so, 
how momentous is the question whether now, as the year 
pleaded for is waning, the Great Husbandman sees the 
signs of fruit. Does the year, so swiftly passing, sweetly 
travel on its way for him ? Is the axe, which was in the 
hand of the dresser of the vineyard, dropped, because there 
is life in the fig-tree ? Shall the appointment of harvest, 
in reference to you, be that of the angelic reapers, who are 
to do the blissful work of gathering the bright golden 
sheaves of Divine grace for heaven ? The Lord bless thee 
out of Zion ! 

Methought Death laid his hands on me 

And did his prisoner bind ; 
And by the sound methought I heard 

His Master's feet behind. 
Methought I stood upon the shore, 

And nothing could I see, 
But the vast ocean, with my eyes 3 

A vast Eternity ! 



48 THE TWO WAYS AND THE TWO ENW. 

Methought I heard the midnight cry, 

Behold the Bridegroom comes ! 
Methought I was called to the bar 

Where souls receive their dooms. 
The world was at an end to me, 

As if it all did burn : 
But lo ! there came a voice from heaven, 

Which ordered my return. 

Lord, I returned at thy command. 

What wilt thou have me do 2 
O let me wholly live to thee, 

To whom my life I owe ; 
Fain would I dedicate to thee 

The remnant of my days. 
Lord, with my life renew my heart, 

That both thy name may praise. 



AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 



I met my friend and guide again after a little interval, 
and my thoughts were turned upon the harvest and the 
fire, especially the tares gathered in bundles to be burned. 
My guide led me to the consideration of the cure or 
quenching of fire by fire, and especially the prevention of 
fire among tares in the eternal world, by the tares of evil 
habits being gathered in bundles, and burned up in this 
world. I shall just report his own words, without stop or 
question, from beginning to end. 



THE FIRES OF SATAN, AND THE FIRES OF GOD. 

There is a great fire burning in the world. Wickedness 
burneth as the fire. Sometimes it is a low, concealed, 
smouldering fire, like spontaneous combustion in the hold 
of a cotton ship, kept for a time from bursting forth into a 
flame. So the fire of sin holds on, unsuspected, in a man's 
nature, especially a man who has been relying on his own 
morality, and has never been taught the nature of sin by 
the Spirit of God. So it burns in his hold, even in the 
very cargo of his virtues, even while, with all sail set, and 
marked of the world for the beauty and stateliness of his 
appearance, he keeps his course across the ocean of life, 
in full confidence of a harbor. He may keep the hatches 
down for a season, and may think all is well, but the fire 
is burning, and even if he should get into port, the moment 

3 



50 AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE, 

the vessel is opened for discharging, it will be all one sheet 
of flame. 

Sometimes it is an open fire, and leaps and rolls and 
hisses up, like a fierce forest conflagration. So it often 
burns in great and open sins, with individuals and commu- 
nities. The sins of Sodom were a flaming fire more ter- 
rible and devouring than the storms of burning brimstone. 
The fire unseen, or unacknowledged, is infinitely worse 
than that which is seen and guarded against. The sins of 
the cities buried beneath the lava of Vesuvius were worse 
than the fires of the burning mountain, though pouring 
down in torrents. Open or concealed, in single souls, or 
families, or cities, or kingdoms, or conflicting armies, 
wickedness burneth as the fire ; it burneth the world over, 
this world. 

But there is a greater fire coming ; the day when all 
that do wickedly shall be burned up like chaff with fire un- 
quenchable. Noiv there is a restraint even upon the fire of sin ; 
then there will be none. God will let it burn on, and take 
its own way without interruption. And not only so, but 
the great globe itself, and all that is therein, shall be burned 
up ; and then all minor fires that remain burning, when 
all that is material shall have been consumed, shall be 
themselves, with death and hell, cast into the lake of fire 
that burneth everlastingly, Happy is he in whom, or about 
whom, this great day of fire shall find nothing but what 
is material to consume ; happy he, in whom the fire of the 
Great Refiner beforehand has burned up all that was sinful, 
and left an immortality of holiness and blessedness. Happy 
the soul in Christ, at that day of doom. In that fire, 
everything will be burned up that can be, and if any thing- 
outlasts that fire, and keeps on burning, it will be just only 
a sinful soul, just the fire unquenchable. All the smoke 
you will see when the universe is burned up, and the ele- 
ments themselves shall have melted with flaming heat, 
will be the smoke of the bottomless pit, a combustion of 



AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 



51 



unquenchable wickedness, amidst the blackness of dark- 
ness forever. 

There are different kinds of fire ; and one kind may be 
but the emblem of another. There is the fire of Divine 
love, a fire of ecstatic life and enjoyment in the soul, a fire 
that burns up sin, removes the dross, and shows God's 
image. Material fire is an emblem of that, for it flames up 
towards heaven ; it seeks the sun, and subdues all things 
to itself, and purifies all things. But there is also the fire 
of selfishness and sinful passion, and of that likewise 
material fire is an emblem, painful, overmastering, consum- 
ing all the forms of material life, beauty and happiness, 
reducing the costliest things to ashes, producing in an ani- 
mated frame intolerable agony. There is, both in a material 
and spiritual point of view, a fire of refinement and purifi- 
cation, and a fire of wrath and punishment. 

Now it makes a great difference whether a man sets the 
fire himself, or God sets it ; and also, whether a man sets 
the fire himself, or leaves his heaps of dry chaff in the way 
to catch it. If a man leaves the chaff and stubble of his 
sins within and around him, his own breath as fire shall in 
due time devour him. But if a man will set fire to his 
own sins, instead of cherishing the fire of sin, and gathering 
materials for it, he shall save himself by fire from the fire. 
If we will judge and condemn ourselves, Paul says we 
shall not be condemned. And Christ says, If thine eye 
offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee ; or if thy 
right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It 
is better to enter into life by so doing, than to go into hell- 
fire with two hands or two eyes, prepared for that fire 
in the service of sin. A man may either keep kindling 
and cherishing the fires of sin in his being, or he may, by 
God's grace, kindle a fire against sin itself, and may burn 
up his own sins. If he will set this fire himself, he may 
be saved ; there shall be no fire for him hereafter ; but if 
he leaves his sins to catch fire from abroad, or leaves them 



52 AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 

to be burned up by God's avenging fire, he is lost, and 
nothing can save him. Man sets the fire of sin, God only- 
sets the fire against sin ; man may destroy himself, God 
only can save him. 

And so it makes a great difference whether God sets the 
fire from within or from without ; and whether he sets the 
fire as a consumer or an avenger, to burn up sin, or to 
punish it ; whether he acts as a refiner and purifier, or a 
just and holy judge, executing the law against the sinner. 
If God sets the fire from within, it is the fire of his grace, 
and it burns up the sin, but spares the sinner, and saves 
him from the fire unquenchable. If God sets the fire from 
without, he does it while in this world, oftentimes to make 
the sinner see and feel the terribleness of the fire in his own 
soul, and the necessity of having it extinguished. I have 
set him on fire round about, says God, describing these 
merciful methods of his providence, yet he knew it not ; 
yea, I have burned him, yet he laid it not to heart. And 
if this state of things continues, if a man thus hardens 
himself in sin and heedlessness, even under God's correc- 
tion, then that must take place which God speaks in regard 
to such persons, that under all their glory and pride, he 
will kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. And the 
Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a 
flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his 
briers, and the glory of his forest and his fruitful field, both 
soul and body. 

So that it makes also an infinite difference whether 
God sets his fire in this world or the next. If in this 
world, and it is the fire of his providence, it may bring the 
sinner to repentance, and save him from the fire everlast- 
ing ; if it is the fire of his grace set within the soul, it will 
save the sinner from every other fire, and render every 
other either harmless or wholesome. But if God's fire be 
resisted, and the experience of it reserved to the world to 
come, there it can no longer be a fire of grace, but only of 



AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 53 

punishment. God's own attributes are as a fire. Our 
God is a consuming fire. But the sinner makes his own 
election whether God shall burn up his sins by grace, or 
burn himself up because of his sins ; if he chooses to hold 
forever to his sins, then will God burn him. God is a 
consuming fire to sin, and to the sinner if he holds to sin. 
But if any will trust in him, — will come to him in obedi- 
ence and faith, to be delivered from sin, for such he will be 
only a consuming fire to their enemies, and a refiner's fire 
to themselves. For I, saith the Lord, speaking of his loving 
kindness to his church and people, will be unto them a wall 
of fire round about them, and a glory in the midst of them. 
We must all have God to be for us either this protecting 
w T all of fire, and this inward fountain of light and glory, or 
else a cons amino: fire upon us and against us because 
of sin. 

Now let me call your attention to a familiar illustration 
of these principles. 1 have read of a missionary travelling 
among the prairies in South Africa, overtaken by a fire in 
the long dry grass over which the course of the journey lay. 
The progress of the flames- from the moment when their 
roar became audible, and the smoke visible in the distance, 
was fearfully rapid, beyond anything the man had ever 
seen or heard of. He and his party, with their wagons, 
oxen and all, came near being burned to destruction. The 
roar of the flames w^as like that of artillery, and they ran 
along the ground like a thick continuous sheet of lightning. 
Not one moment was to be lost. The missionary jumped 
from his wagon, with a box of lucifers in his hand, intend- 
ing, by setting fire to the dry stubble immediately around 
them, and so letting it burn from the centre outwards, to 
clear a place for the feet of the oxen, and cause them to 
pass into it with the party, so that the driving sheet of 
flame should not envelop and overwhelm them — otherwise 
they would have dropped dead in the midst of it. On 
hastily opening the lucifer box, to his extreme terror he 



54 AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 

found it contained only two remaining matches, and the 
first one of those failed. What a moment of suspense and 
anxiety ! Most providentially and happily the second 
match struck fire, and in less than a minute the grass 
around them was in flames, and a space was cleared out- 
wards, into the centre of which they drove. But it was 
scarcely done when the main body of the fire reached 
them, leaping, careering, like ten thousand demons frantic 
for their prey. Had not the space been cleared by their 
own burning, before the whirlwind of fire swept by, its 
baptism would have left them lifeless. And even as it 
was, they were in great danger. Although they crowded 
together as far from the fire as the space they had gained 
would admit, yet the heat was almost beyond endurance, 
and for a few seconds they could scarcely breathe. Never- 
theless, the flames touched them not, and in three minutes 
they w r ere safe, and the fiery whirlwind was tossing and 
roaring beyond them. Before it came they had burned up 
the materials that otherwise would have fed it to their own 
destruction. 

Now there is a great moral in all this. We must set 
fire to our own homebred, individual, and social evils, or 
we shall have no space to stand upon in the midst of the 
great fire that comes roaring over the world. It burns 
with rapid, resistless, overwhelming fury, even this side 
the grave, enveloping the soul that is not prepared against 
it, in a scathing flame of temptation. But when a man, 
by the reformation and regeneration of his own nature, 
through God's grace, has cleared a space around him, or 
rather when God has cleared it for him, it is a wonderful 
defence against the fires of sin on every side. If this be 
not done, if his own sins are set on fire from abroad, if the 
devil's fires that come sweeping over the prairies of this 
world, find the dry grass of the man's passions all ready, 
like tinder, neither mown down nor burned over by himself, 
the fire will go over him and burn him up. But if he has 



AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE, 55 

been working beforehand, and has himself begun the burn- 
ing at his own door, in his own heart, in his own habits, 
all the fires that can be set sweeping around him will not 
harm him. 

Now you may apply this to social evils, to moral, and 
even material nuisances of every kind. Put out of the 
way all exciting causes of a pestilence like the cholera, 
remove the filth from your streets, ventilate j^our houses, 
make the habits of the people cleanly, and above all, burn 
up or remove all intoxicating drinks, and make the habit 
of temperance universal, and then, although a European 
atmosphere with the cholera stratum shrouded in it should 
cross the Atlantic, and brood like the wings of the Destroy- 
ing Angel over our city, yet the plague might not take; 
the pestilential miasma might not strike from the cloud, 
just for want of those conducting agents to which it has 
been accustomed, and with which it has such friendly and 
fearful affinities. But let the streets be filled with accu- 
mulated filth, and the houses with impure air, let whole 
squares of miserable buildings and cellars be crowded with 
squalid, vicious, dissolute tenants, and above all, let the 
dram shops at every corner be kept open, and let intem- 
perance prevail, and then not at one, but at a thousand 
points, the plague will take, the infection will spread, the 
lightning of death will strike. 

Now in all cases, they who go to the source of evils, 
they who labor to remove the causes of them, they who set 
in operation the means of prevention, they who gather up 
out of the way the materials that otherwise would be food 
for the fire, are doing one of the noblest works of personal 
and social benevolence. If, by God's grace, they are 
carrying on this reformation with themselves, they are 
preparing and fixing conductors for the mercy of heaven, 
not its wrath — for the element of life, not death — they are 
creating and setting at work disinfecting agencies, not 
noxious ones. Every evil habit that they conquer, every 



56 AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 

vicious element they neutralize or annihilate is an insu- 
rance for the benefit of society. Could only ten men, or 
even five, of Sodom, have been persuaded to follow the 
example, adopt the religious principles, and obey the God 
of Lot, the whole dissolute city would have been safe from 
the gathering storms of fiery vengeance. So the best 
patriot, the best lover of his city and his country, is he 
who becomes from the heart and in the life a true Chris- 
tian. That person is doing the greatest work for his coun- 
try and his race, who is growing most in grace, and in the 
knowledge and likeness of his God and Saviour. 

And in regard to work done upon and in behalf of others, 
those persons especially are doing a great and glorious 
work, who are seeking and gathering immortal beings to be 
changed and purified. He that winneth souls is wise, not 
he that is most skilful in gathering grains of gold and 
washing them. They who are gathering children out of 
the streets, preserving them from places of temptation and 
infamy, and making such arrangements for them that 
they shall grow up to be themselves the reforming elements 
and agents of society, instead of the coadjutors, the tools, 
the materials of the great malignant Incendiary, are doing 
a great part towards the world's redemption. All who are 
thus taught, thus purified, instead of offering food for the 
fires of Satan sweeping over the world, are constituting a 
clearing where the fire finds no nourishment, and shall have 
no power. The Sabbath school makes many such clear- 
ings. The institution of the Home for the Friendless makes 
such a clearing. It is one of the rallying places of strong 
virtue and piety in the city — one of the centres of refuge, 
where God's good Providence and grace, and not the fires 
of sin, have burned over a space for us to occupy safely, 
amidst the flames roaring around us. The vantage ground 
thus gained ought to be well held. It should be improved 
to the uttermost. Let this work of benevolence be sus- 
tained, and not only sustained, but let the means of its 



AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 57 

benevolent operations be increased, and, generation after 
generation, it will be an incalculable blessing to society. 

But this is a thing by the way. The great instruction 
for us is persona], as to our own escape from the fire, or 
preparation for it. There is really no escape, but by the 
burning up of our own sins, within us and round about us. 
The fire which consumes sin, and is lighted, by God's 
grace, for ourselves, must meet the fire that sin feeds, and 
so stop it, giving us in Christ a place of safety. Let fire 
meet fire in this world, and we are safe ; but if we wait 
for the fire to overtake us from abroad first, then we are 
lost. The fire will be set, and either in this world or 
the next we must experience it. If we experience it here, 
we may be saved from it in the next world. Either here 
or there, God himself will set it, and I have said that it 
makes an infinite difference whether God sets the fire 
against sin in this world or the eternal world. But in 
reality it is already set there, and it is roaring on to meet 
every sinful creature, although it was prepared not for 
man, but for the devil and his angels. If God sets it in 
this world, it is to meet and conquer the fire unquenchable, 
by destroying all the material which would otherwise be 
presented for that fire to prey upon. It is the fire of grace 
overcoming sin, which is the elemental fire of hell. But 
the work of grace is finished in this world ; there is no 
conflict of grace against sin in the next world ; the dross 
must all be burned away here, and Christ's image estab- 
lished, or there will be no burning there but the everlasting 
burnings ; and if the fire be set in the next world for us, 
it can be only the fire of retributive justice. 

God warns us of it, calls our attention to it, shows us 
that in our sins we are directly in its path, and as a bundle 
of dry tares are prepared for it, to be consumed by it. 
God gives us time to clear ourselves a space to stand upon, 
but no time to lose ; the flame may be close at hand ; it 
may be upon us before we are aware. We have God's 

3* 



58 AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 

word and God's grace, with which we may strike the fire 
that shall save us, but we must do it quickly, or the fire 
will be on us, over us, within us, around us. We may 
hear its roar, its thunder ; we may see its lurid glare. 
We may possibly think it is yet distant, but it comes with 
incredible swiftness, and wo to those whom it overtakes in 
the stubble of their sins. They are brought into desolation 
as in a moment ; they are utterly consumed with terrors. 

Now suppose that in reference to the world to come, 
and the fires of retribution there, we were placed like that 
Missionary, with only two more opportunities of escape 
remaining ; just as he, on opening his box, found to his 
alarm that there were but two matches left. Would there 
be any time to be lost ? But we are merely supposing 
what all the world over, beneath the light and offers of the 
gospel, is a reality, continually, with some. With whom, 
by name, is a matter of perfect uncertainty to us, but not 
to God. But suppose it were our case. Suppose we had 
come to our last opportunity, and the fire roaring upon us, 
what is to be done ? Can ive stop the fire, turn it back, 
put it out, or cover ourselves with a garment that shall be 
proof against it ? Who is he that can do this but God 
only, God in Christ, God our Saviour ? Who else can 
forgive sins but he only ? Who can pluck from the soul 
one rooted sorrow, or in the least minister to a mind 
diseased, but he, the Great Physician of the soul? It is 
upon him that we must cast ourselves, and thus only can 
we be safe. Our very anxiety is such sometimes that in 
a case of extreme danger we hardly know what to do 
with our very opportunities. And the soul under convic- 
tion of sin is sometimes like a theatre on fire with the 
doors opening inward, but the terrified inmates, in their 
very anxiety to escape, pressing against them and closing 
them irrecoverably. Just so our souls, under sentence of 
God's holy law, are fall of fiery accusing thoughts, and 
we press against the doors of deliverance, and Christ only 



AN APOLOGUE ON FIRE. 59 

can open them. But he opens them to faith, and puts out 
the fires, and saves us. Nay, he gives us the faith first, 
puts it into our bosoms, as a key, just as Christian found 
the Key of Promise that could open every lock in Doubt- 
ing Castle, kept by Giant Despair. Then we hear his 
voice, The Key ! the Key ! Try the Key, and come forth 
into life and liberty ! 

Sinful habits are fearful, fiery things. Ordinarily they 
are eternal ; it is rare that they are changed. And a single 
choice may become a habit, may take precedence in the 
whole character, and grow into a despotism that never can 
be broken. Most of those persons who perish through in- 
temperance, forge in the fires of youth the first links of the 
dreadful chain that envelops them. The Latin maxim is 
full of wisdom, Obsta principiis. Resist the beginnings. 
Let not the present pleasures or gratifications with which 
Satan, or your tempting companions, or your own ungov- 
erned passions, may allure you to evil, prevail with you to 
begin the dread habit of indulgence. Beware the first 
step of a habit, or if you have taken it, break from it before 
it becomes eternal. Break from it now, or it is likely to 
become eternal. Remember that the pleasure is only mo- 
mentary; the habit to which, for the pleasure, you sell 
your birth -right, is inveterate, and comes at last to be 
nothing but agony. That great writer, Mr. Coleridge, 
says, speaking of vicious pleasures, in part from his own 
dread experience of evil, and therefore the more solemnly, 
" Centries, or wooden frames, are put under the arches of 
a bridge, to remain no longer than till the latter are con- 
solidated. Even so, pleasures are the devil's scaffolding to 
build a habit upon — that once formed and steady, the 
pleasures are sent for firewood, and the hell begins in 
this life" 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS: 

AND THE DISPOSITION OF THEM. 

PART I. 

A few days after this, my former guide met me with an- 
other text and story, for which he had both a prologue and 
epilogue to match. He said the text was merely a condensed 
description of a good deal of the piety of modern times, 
though some might deny its application. It was that pithy 
rebuke by the Prophet Hosea, My people ask counsel at 
their stocks. Do you think, said he, that there ever was a 
Wall-Street in Judea ? Did the people there ask counsel 
at their stocks, more habitually than they do now in Lon- 
don ? Stocks now are one of the most universal syno- 
nymes of riches ; stocks in the olden time were idols ; 
which form, think you, now, of the idol, is most heartily 
and universally worshipped ? 

The old fashioned heathen and Pagan idolatry said of 
their stocks, Ye are our father, and of a stone, Thou hast 
made me. The more customary idolatry of covetousness 
in modern times also worships stocks, and says of any acute 
successful speculation in them by the worshipper, It has 
been the making of him. Stocks are doubtless worshipped 
now, not indeed exactly in the same way as of old, but 
still as the god of the affections, a household, social, 
and commercial god. In the same manner the staff in old 
times was used for divination, and so men relied upon their 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 61 

staves ; " their staff declareth unto them." Now that this 
kind of heathenish divination is exploded, men have another 
staff to declare unto them. A man idolatrous in the way 
of covetousness leans upon his wealth as his staff, and 
makes that his diviner, his seer, his soothsayer. 

Both these things are idolatry ; and it is hard to say, 
considering the greater light upon the one than the other, 
which is the worse. Under the new and more spiritual 
dispensation we have reason to fear there is almost as much 
idolatry as under the old. Both forms of idolatry lavish 
gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and 
hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god ; they fall down, 
yea, they worship. It is all one, whether the god is in the 
form of a golden calf, or a doubloon, so it commands the 
affections. Jeremiah says that the stock is a doctrine of 
vanities. And Isaiah says, Shall a man be such a fool, as to 
fall down to the stock of a tree ? Isaiah's description of 
the heathen idolatry is marvellously true of the idolatry of 
wealth. " He burneth part thereof in the fire, with part 
thereof he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied ; 
yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I 
have seen the fire. And the residue thereof he maketh a 
god, even his graven image. He falleth down unto it, and 
worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, 
for thou art my god." Just so, a man whose soul is in his 
wealth, uses its surplus for his appetites, his wants, his 
luxuries, his pleasures, and saith, I am warm, I have seen 
the fire ; and the residue he maketh a god. His god is his 
great accumulating capital. To that he looks with ardent 
worship, and he carries towards the idol of his devotion 
that entireness, and supremacy of service which in the 
worship of (rod is of infinite value ; an eye single. 

I think, said I, that you might have found a more pointed 
and comprehensive text than that, if you had wished to 
preach a sermon on the love of money, not to speak of Paul's 
proverbs. What is that in Habakkuk ? " Wo to him that 



62 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set 
his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power 
of evil." 

Well, said my guide, this again is but the worship of 
stocks ; " deliver me, for thou art my god." A man's 
whole dependence in such a case, is upon his riches ; these 
being secured, he deems his nest unassailable, and dreams 
of security from evil. " Because they have no changes, 
therefore they fear not God." This self-dependence, this 
dependence on gold and silver and not on God, this feeling 
of security, when a man has thus set his nest on high, and 
become a man of an independent fortune, is that which 
alienates the soul from God, diminishes its sense of de- 
pendence on him, nay, renders such a feeling insupportable, 
and makes the soul ready to say, in regard to God, according 
to that true picture drawn in the book of Job, Depart from 
us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. This is 
the reason why covetousness is, and is called, idolatry. 
This was that idolatry apparent in the case of the young 
man with great possessions, to whom our blessed Lord 
made known the seemingly severe condition, that if he 
would have a part in the kingdom of heaven, he must sell 
all that he had, and give to the poor. 

You say seemingly severe, said I ; was it not really a 
pretty hard and severe requisition? It is generally so 
considered. 

That, said my guide, depends upon the character. It 
may have been hard for him, with his feelings and 
habits; it may have been hard, and without Christ's grace 
impossible for him to comply with it, having such a heart. 
But as to severity, looked at in the right light, according 
to the reality of things, there was no severity about it ; it 
was an infinitely generous and easy condition. Sell? 
Give ? Why ! if the globe had been made of solid gold, 
or had been one entire and perfect chrysolite, or diamond, 
wherewith the possessor of it might purchase the whole 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 63 

planetary system, and had belonged to this young man, it 
would have been nothing to pay for one year's enjoyment 
of heaven; but for an eternal abode in heaven, for the 
possession of the Spirit of heaven, and of life everlasting 
in Christ, the man's possessions, though they had included 
the temple itself, were not fit to be named in comparison ; 
they were as flakes of dirt, which he might brush from the 
border of his mantle. Seemingly severe ? What would 
be thought of a lawyer or merchant, who, if you offered 
him the whole of California, with all the proceeds of that 
El Dorado for forty years to come, in exchange for a life 
lease of his dingy office in South street or Wall street, 
should turn away from you exceeding sorrowful at so hard a 
bargain ? An eternity of blessedness in exchange for that 
man's houses in Jerusalem or farms in Judea ? Why, if it 
had been a commercial offer, or indeed a business transac- 
tion in any way, the idea of severity in the terms would be 
infinitely absurd. But in truth our blessed Lord was just 
simply trying the spirit of the man ; he would bring out, 
to his own view, the covetousness, the earthliness, the 
supremacy of self, in his heart. All Judea sold and given 
to the poor could have been no purchase of heaven. But 
the spirit, the temper, the heart, which should have given 
up all at Christ's suggestion, and out of love to him, 
would have been heaven itself. And Christ showed him 
that without that spirit, that heart, weaned from its earthly 
treasures, delivered from its sordid covetousness, there was 
no place in heaven for him, and no possibility of heaven. 

Our Lord saw that the dependence of that young man, 
notwithstanding his religious education, was upon his 
wealth, and not upon God, and that until that earthly 
dependence was taken away, his soul would not come to 
God. His wealth kept him from God, and had the entire 
control of his affections, and his wealth must be removed, 
if he was to be saved, unless his affections could be re- 
moved from it ; if not, the only hope in his case would be 



64 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

to take away his wealth, the only beginning of a possi- 
bility of bringing him to God. He wrapped himself about 
in his wealth, and covered himself up in it, as the stay 
and preserver of his life and happiness, but it kept him 
out of heaven, it kept the life of God from being enkindled 
in his soul. Anything will do this, on which the heart is 
fixed supremely, and so is kept from God. And while this 
is the case, a man may come in vain, even to Christ him- 
self, with the inquiry, Good Master, what good thing shall 
I do to inherit eternal life ? 

What good thing ? Why, the whole current and habit 
of your soul must be changed, and if you are not ready 
for that, you must give up the idol your soul is set upon, 
or else it must be taken from you, or otherwise there is 
no hope in your case. The fire of God can never be 
kindled within you beneath the suffocating weight of your 
farms and merchandize. 

John Newton says that he once set out to light a candle 
with the extinguisher upon it. Many a man sets out to 
light the candle of the Lord within him, as this young 
man did, with the extinguisher of wealth or pleasure upon 
it, or the craving desire after wealth and pleasure. He 
must remove the extinguisher. He need not throw his 
wealth away, but he must remove it from that place in his 
soul, or it is idolatry ; he must remove it from his affec- 
tions, or it stands between him and God, it shuts him out 
from heaven. A man coming to light his candle need not 
throw away the extinguisher, but he must remove it. And 
so a man need not absolutely renounce or throw away his 
wealth and pleasure, unless, indeed, they have been unlaw- 
fully and fraudulently gained, or are in themselves sinful; 
but he must cast them down out of that place in his heart 
where they have excluded God from his affections. He 
must be willing, should God call for it, to give up all for 
God. He must give God the first and supreme place in 
his existence, and must begin to use his wealth, if he 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 65 

already possesses it, for God, or if he is seeking it, he must 
seek it as God's steward, God's servant, to do with it the 
will of his Lord. No man can serve two masters; for 
either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he 
will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot 
serve God and mammon. 

Well, said I, it is not wise to make the way of salva- 
tion harder than it really is, nor to put the forbidding 
things foremost. 

"Why, said my Conductor, there are no forbidding things 
to be put either foremost or hindmost, if the heart be right; 
it is all brightness and beauty. True religion cannot have 
less than the whole heart, and it never asks more ; and 
when that is given, all things are full of ease, delight, and 
love. The religion of the cross is not a savage, morose, 
pleasure-hating, or wealth-hating religion, but far from it. 
It is the only religion that has at heart the pleasure, the 
happiness, the true wealth of man. It is a religion of infi- 
nite enjoyment, joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is 
not a monkish, gloomy ascetical religion, binding a man to 
poverty ; but one of its very prayers is, Give me neither 
poverty nor riches. But it does bind a man to poverty of 
spirit, meekness and gentleness and lowliness of heart, 
which is the true riches. It tells all men that if they be 
lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, they exclude 
themselves from his kingdom. It does not despise money, 
nor forbid its acquisition, but it says that the love of 
money is the root of all evil. It would sanctify both our 
pleasures and possessions by making the love of God, and 
not of our blessings, supreme in the soul. It is not a 
religion that prevents or forbids a man from enjoying him- 
self, but it shows him and leads him into the only possible 
way whereby he can enjoy himself. It is a religion that 
looks out for his enjoyment, makes that a special object, 
and prepares him for it, and would prevent him from ren- 
dering it everlastingly impossible. It is a religion that will 



66 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

not let a man take counsel at his stocks, because that would 
ruin him, nor lean upon his staff, because as a splintered 
reed it would pierce him. It delivers him from the feverish 
thirst and anxiety of pleasure, by making him happy in 
God. A man can enjoy himself, only by loving God 
supremely, only by being delivered from the dominion of 
selfishness. He that seeketh his life shall lose it, but he 
that loseth his life for Christ's sake shall find it. 

Ah, said I, if you could make men understand this, you 
would gain a mighty point in our world ; but you cannot 
do it. No, indeed, said my Guide ; nothing but Divine 
Grace can do it. And there is, on this point, a sad and 
awful mistake with the children of this world, and that too 
with some who fancy themselves far advanced on pilgrim- 
age to a better world. Read the dialogue between Money- 
love, Hold-the-world, Save-all, and By-ends, in the Pil- 
grim's Progress, and you will have a picture to the life, of 
the maxims of the world brought into the things of religion, 
and the kind of character thus formed. You will remem- 
ber that these gentlemen were the parties with whom 
Christian and Hopeful fell in, just when in their pilgrimage 
they had arrived in the neighborhood of the gold-region. 
The conversation of these men, and their religion also, was 
such as suited the climate of the mines, such as betokened 
the nearness and prevalence of some powerful temptation. 
They were described in Paul's Epistle to Timothy as men 
of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that 
gain is godliness. The true Pilgrims, Christian and Hope- 
ful, had no sooner shaken off the company of these men, 
than they came in their journey upon a delicate plain 
called Ease ; which plain is much wider now than it was 
then ; so wide, indeed, that thousands have settled there 
on farms and in villages, going for the present no farther 
in their pilgrimage. At that time the plain was narrow, 
so that though they travelled upon it with much content 
while it lasted, yet they quickly got over it. 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 67 

It may represent one of those intervals of quiet and 
sunshine in the condition of the Church of God, which, by- 
its temptations to the habit of self-indulgence, puts the 
Pilgrims in danger, and but poorly prepares them for en- 
countering the difficulties and self-denials before them. In 
our day, this plain is broad, almost interminably. And 
though there is an inscription on the King's highway as 
you pass through it, Wo to them that are at ease in Zion, 
yet a great many are at ease, in very various forms of self- 
indulgence amidst the rich gardens of this plain. Very 
few go straight over it on the King's way. The Pil- 
grims, Christian and Hopeful, travelled on it with much 
content, while it lasted, but as they did not stop in their 
pilgrimage for the purpose of enjoying its comforts, but 
kept straight on, only admiring the sweet scenery by the 
way, and thanking God that they could enjoy it while 
travelling, and that the way of duty was so sweet and 
pleasant, they soon got over it, and must follow on, what- 
ever the way might be that came after it. The spirit of 
ease and self-indulgence would have led them to tarry for 
a while in the country of ease, and to have bought, or at 
least hired, a pretty little cottage in the plain, where they 
might enjoy life for a season without travelling. But they 
were men of a different spirit. They thought continually 
of those sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, at the end 
of their pilgrimage, the everlasting spring, the never- with- 
ering flowers, the holy paradise of God. And they heard 
continually a voice behind them, saying, Arise ye, and 
depart hence, for this is not your rest ; because it is pol- 
luted it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction. 
Dangerous rest, indeed, that kept the mind, the thoughts, 
the heart, the feet, from heaven. Anything is dangerous 
that cannot be enjoyed by the way, but for which you have 
to stop in the way, or to go out of the way ; anything is 
dangerous that stops you in your pilgrimage, and that you 
cannot take along with you. Christian had already gained 



68 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

some bitter experience in the Hill Difficulty, as to the 
danger of stopping for rest ; thereby for a season he lost 
his roll of assurance. 

"Well, at the further side of that Plain was a little Hill 
called Lucre, and in that Hill a silver mine, which some 
of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the 
rarity of it, had turned aside to see ; but going too near the 
brink of the pit, the ground being deceitful under them, 
broke, and they were slain ; some also were maimed there, 
and could not, to their dying day, be their own men again. 

I beseech you, mark that pregnant sentence of the 
Dreamer ; some who were maimed there, could not to 
their dying day be their oum men again. There are those 
who know this from experience. There are those in whom 
the light of the Lord once shone sweetly, brightly, serenely, 
when with a single eye, and humble, meek, unworldly, af- 
fectionate heart, they set out on their pilgrimage, full of 
ardor, full of prayer, trembling at every danger, keeping- 
near to Christ ; whose first real turning out of this heavenly 
way was a step or two to see these mines, and a consequent 
desire and determination to be rich at any rate. Then they 
entered, and began to dig. Then gradually self, instead of 
Christ, got uppermost in digging, and the spirit of the world 
entered into the heart, and the light of the Lord became 
less and less in it. For generally the diggers that stay in 
those mines do not dig by the lights of heaven, — can dig 
better in the dark, indeed, after getting accustomed to it. 
So the damps of the mines first made the inward heavenly 
light burn low, then it almost went out ; and if the Pilgrims 
ever got back out of the dungeon, it was with their Chris- 
tian hope almost extinguished, their spirituality of mind 
diminished and darkened, their faith dim and feeble, the 
seals of God's love in Christ, that once shone so brightly, 
almost invisible. If they got back at all, it was only by 
such care and intercession of Christ for them, as he made for 
Peter on a like occasion, when Satan sifted him as wheat, 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 69 

and his only salvation was by the main force of Christ's 
prayer, / have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. 
If they got back at all, it was in such a condition, so 
maimed and prostrate, that they could not to their dying 
day be their own men again. 

The spirit of this world, the spirit of the love of gain, 
as also any other besetting sin, if it once gets into the heart 
of the Christian, makes fearful havoc with his piety. You 
may enter into the speculations of Demas with your face 
bright with the light from the Celestial City ; but ah, when 
you come back, if you come back, what a change ! Pale, 
anxious, foreboding ; deep wounds of conscience within, and 
the scars of an enemy who has been searing your conscience, 
while you have been digging ; he has been watching over 
you with his hot iron ; perhaps you will be in bondage all 
your life long, and saved only so as by fire. There is a 
deal of this maiming of Christians accomplished by the god 
of this world, in one way and another, even when he does 
not succeed in utterly destroying them. v They bear about, 
not the marks of the Lord Jesus, but of Satan ; and not 
scars like Great Heart's, received in deadly battle against 
Apollyon, but scourges of his iron whip, while they have 
been digging for him, or otherwise indulging their own 
passions in his service. They cannot, to their dying day, 
be their own men again. Long neglects of prayer, while 
in pursuit of the things of this world, will of themselves 
alone be sufficient to produce this mischief. It is a thing 
to be most earnestly guarded against. O that we were all 
bright and shining lights, that a man can walk by, read by, 
run by, work by ; bright and shining lights instead of dim, 
ineffectual hazes, almost put out by the damps of the mines, 
the clouds of damps hanging around them, and making them 
like gloomy dim lamps in horn lanterns. Hear what Christ 
saith. If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full 
of light. Hear again what Christ saith about moth and 
rust, and the heart beinsf where the treasure is. Hear 



70 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

likewise the saying of a man, who possessed the gift of a 
large measure of the Spirit and the wisdom of Christ, the 
excellent Leighton. A man, he says, may drown himself 
in a puddle, as well as in the sea, if he will down and bury 
his face in it. There is no evil passion, though it have but 
a corner of the heart for its exercise, but will ruin the man 
and his piety, if he make it a spared and darling lust. Hear 
the language of a wise old Christian Poet on the bosom- 
sin : — 

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round ! 

Parents first season us ; then schoolmasters 
Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound 

To rules of reason, holy messengers, 
Pulpits and Sundays ; sorrow dogging sin ; 

Afflictions sorted ; anguish of all sizes ; 
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in ; 

Bibles laid open ; millions of surprises ; 
Blessings beforehand ; ties of gratefulness ; 

The sound of glory ringing in our ears ; 
Without, our shame ; within, our consciences ; 

Angels and grace ; eternal hopes and fears ! 

Yet all these fences, and their whole array, 
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away ! 

"Well, said I, the love of money is not the only bosom- 
sin, nor the hardest to be conquered. No, said my guide, 
there are other besetting sins, both tyrannous and strong, 
but this is the most universal ; and often it is the most 
dangerous to those who are the subjects of no particular 
immoral, but darling appetite or lust, and in whose way 
towards heaven there does not, therefore, seem to be any 
particular hindrance. But let us go on with our survey 
of this temptation. 

In our day this little Hill Lucre has grown into a great 
mountain, and the silver mine has become a gold mine, and 
more than all that, the god of this world has so altered the 
ground, that instead of entering the mine by deep pits, all 
these evidently dangerous shafts are now covered up, and a 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 71 

man may dig anywhere, on apparently firm ground, and 
get plenty of gold in the open air, with only the labor of 
washing the dirt from it, in the streams that issue from the 
mountain. But whereas formerly the Pilgrims that turned 
aside to look at the mines or to work in them had some- 
times fallen into the pits and been slain, and sometimes, if 
they ever escaped with life, had been so sadly bruised and 
maimed, or poisoned and sicklied with the unwholesome 
damps, that ever afterwards they had to go halting, and 
with fearful hearts, and with great discomfort on their pil- 
grimage ; noiv, those that venture on the mountain to dig 
there, some of them are carried off with quick fevers or con- 
sumptions, some get cramps, rheumatisms and agues, and 
thence a ruined constitution, and just as few are seen re- 
gaining the way of their pilgrimage as ever. 

You will mark the nearness of the Plain called Ease to 
the region of the mines with its temptations and its dangers. 
When the church has a long period of quiet and prosperity 
with the world, (and as we have noticed, this Plain in our 
day has become very wide), the habits of luxury and con- 
formity to the world increase, and of course those habits 
being expensive, greater means are needed to keep them up. 
Pilgrims beginning to imitate the world and not to lead it, 
or to pass frugally through it, but beginning to settle by 
whole colonies in this Plain of Ease, have great want of 
money for themselves and their own households. If Ephraim 
mixes himself among the people, not to lead them to God, 
but to enjoy their pleasures, to copy their fashions, to strive 
with them in the pursuit of gain, and to rival them in lux- 
ury, then Ephraim must have money to support his own 
establishments. The house-rents in the Plain of Ease are 
very high ; and whereas the Lord of the way has promised 
to those who keep steady on their pilgrimage a protection 
from its dangers, and a supply of all their wants, he has 
never made any such promise to those who settle in that 
Plain, so that they have to look out for themselves with 



72 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

just as much eagerness and absorbedness of soul in the 
things of this world, as those who have no God to depend 
upon. They often have to look out for the bare costs of 
their living, with a great deal more difficulty than they 
could ever have endured had they kept straight on in their 
pilgrimage. And in many cases they form the plan of a 
permanent support for their children in that very same 
Plain of Ease, where they flattered themselves at first that 
they were only sojourning for a season ; and this requires 
an enormous capital, and their children, having no idea of 
going on pilgrimage, grow up from beginning to end, in 
habits of great expense and self-indulgence. So that those 
who will be rich in order to keep up their establishments 
in the Plain of Ease, besides the danger, and almost cer- 
tainty of drowning themselves in destruction and perdition, 
are often put to the greatest and most painful shifts to get 
money. 

God's promises to those who keep on, like Christian and 
Hopeful, in the way of their pilgrimage, are very sweet, 
plentiful and precious. He makes a covenant of care, his 
own kind care and love, both for themselves and their fam- 
ilies. And one of the most experienced Pilgrims that ever 
journeyed and reached home, once said, I have been young, 
and now am old ; yet have I never seen the righteous for- 
saken, nor his seed begging bread. It is true that the 
advice of another great Pilgrim, still more experienced, 
because under a dispensation of greater light, for those who 
go on pilgrimage, seems somewhat strict. " Having food 
and raiment, let us be therewith content." He does not 
command that a Pilgrim never have anything else, but he 
advises, and it is sweet and loving advice, that if we be 
reduced simply to that, food and raiment, we be quiet and 
content. And truly, a contented mind is better than great 
riches. And after all, what more than this allotment of 
Paul, with a contented mind, does any man really need on 
the way of his pilgrimage ? And if God secures this for 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 73 

himself and his family, and heaven at the end, is he not an 
infinitely kind, gracious, and most indulgent God ? Does 
any master ever give more than this, support by the way, 
and large wages when the work is done ? 

God says, Make you my service your delight, your wants 
shall be my care. Seek first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. 
But on the other hand he says, If you stop in the Plain of 
Ease, you will have to take care of yourself; and if that 
becomes your supreme business, you are lost ; if you seek 
this world for yourself, you will have to hire yourself out 
to the god of this world, and doing this, you will receive 
the wages of his services, and none other ; and the wages 
of sin is death. Doing this, you will probably, in some 
shape or another, go digging in the mines, in order to gain 
the means of maintaining your support in the Plain of 
Ease. Your wants, your expenses, in the Plain of Ease, 
are incomparably greater than those on the way of your 
pilgrimage. Besides, they are wants for yourself, not for 
God, and so you go to the mines for yourself, not for him ; 
and if that be the rule of your life, then you come under 
the dread, withering, but immutable law of selfishness, He 
that seeketh his life, shall lose it. Alas ! a man had better 
be involved in the smoke, perplexities and terrors of the 
valley of the shadow of death, all his life-time, than be under 
such a law of life, such a despotism of death in life. 

Oh, as we said before, if a man be not set free from self, 
he never can enjoy himself; and nothing but God's kind 
love, in Christ's blessed service, can possibly set him free. 
But, let him only throw himself on Christ, and by his grace 
set out on the way of this pilgrimage with great earnest- 
ness, let him get absorbed intently in Christ's service, and 
he will forget his own ; and thus Christ sets him free, in 
making him so sweetly forgetful of self, and absorbed in 
Christ. All his service for self, is service for Christ. The 
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus shall be felt through 

4 



74 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

his whole being, setting him free from the law of sin and 
of death. In general, it may be said that self is a dog or a 
wolf that keeps watch over you ; it is only by setting him 
at work for others, that you can escape from him yourself. 
Now the Plain of Ease being so near the mines, and the 
King's highway running for a longer or shorter season 
through the Plain, it makes a great temptation for the 
Pilgrims that straggle variously, and do not keep narrowly 
in the way. But you will observe that the mines them- 
selves are out of the way, even though the Plain of Ease 
was in the way. And it is the maxims and men of the 
world, and not the wants of our Pilgrimage, that call the 
Pilgrims' attention to the mines, and urge them to turn in 
thither. " Then I saw in my dream, that a little off' the 
road, over against the silver mine, stood Demas, gentleman- 
like, to call to passengers to come and see ; who said to 
Christian and his fellow, Ho ! turn aside hither, and I will 
show you a thing." Well, certainly, the silver mine or the 
gold mine, whether the land be Lucre or Beulah, is always 
a little off the road ; the first temptations to it are a little 
off the road; and here stood Demas, a little off the road, 
and the first word was, merely, Come and see ; no great 
evil in that, surely. No, certainly, none at all. The 
blessed creatures in heaven cry, Come and see, at God's 
wonders ; and the Angel of the Gospel on earth cries, Come 
and see. But when the god of this world imitates the 
voice, for his shows and lying wonders, it is a different 
thing. The world run to the door, run into the streets, but 
it is Death and hell following with him. Come and see, 
says Demas ; can there be any harm in that ? No ! but it 
is off the road, and while you look, you are entering- into 
temptation, doing that against which our Lord directs you 
to pray earnestly, because it is the first step towards ruin. 
While you look, the cloud is around you, and the spirit of 
the wonder enters into you. It is as the deadly fascination 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 75 

of the snake ; it holds you with its glittering eye, and you 
gaze till you become dizzy. 

It is dangerous even to contemplate successful, sudden 
riches. While you look, you envy, you thirst. The very 
first temptation in Paradise was, Come and see. Eve 
looked at the mellow, tempting, golden fruit, and looked 
again, and was lost. The voice Come and see, is sometimes 
dangerous enough even in the very path of our Pilgrim- 
age ; but off the road, beware. Our blessed Lord says 
the cares of life and the deceitfulness of riches choke the 
word. Surely there is nothing sinful in the cares of life; 
no, certainly not, if you meet them with patience ; but if 
they choke the word, what then ? And riches, there is 
nothing evil in riches, unless got by wrong. No, but the 
deceitfulness of riches, their dominion over the heart, their 
idolatrous, absorbing power, that is the danger. And hasty 
riches are very different from riches gradually gained by 
honest industry. He that maketh haste to be rich shall 
not be innocent. Riches may increase, by God's provi- 
dence, even in the way of this Pilgrimage ; but God's di- 
rection is, if they increase, set not your heart upon them. 
And Christ's memorable words are never to be forgotten, 
never can be forgotten : It is easier for a camel to go through 
the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Aye, says one, but our Lord explained his meaning 
when he said, How hard is it for them that trust in riches 
to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Very true. But 
why did he put it in the other form first, and not make 
the correction till the blank astonishment of his disciples 
at that saying induced him ? And indeed it was to their 
ears the most astounding incredible proposition they had 
ever heard from his lips. He put it in that blank, unexcep- 
tive form, because in all ages it is the nature of riches to 
make men trust in them, and ninety-nine out of a hundred 



76 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

do trust in them, and with all possible caution and good 
use they are very hazardous to a man's salvation. 

But you may perhaps say again, Was not Joseph of Ari- 
mathea a rich man ? And was not Zaccheus a rich man ? 
And was not Philemon a rich man ? And does not God 
give particular charges to rich men as Christians ? And did 
not Peter and John both own houses in Jerusalem ? And 
does not Paul say that if any man provideth not for his own 
he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel ? And 
if we merchants were all to turn preachers, and let our busi- 
ness go at loose ends, where would be your monies for the 
Missionary Enterprise ? 

Well, that is all true. But did any of them, in disobe- 
dience of Christ's warning, lay up riches for themselves, 
setting their hearts upon them ? Were they not all acting 
as God's stewards ? And does not Paul charge them that 
are rich in this world that they be rich in good works, will- 
ing to communicate, that is, to give abundantly ? It is 
very true that God nowhere forbids men to become rich, 
but he does forbid their becoming rich for themselves, for 
that is idolatry. We mast have reservoirs of water ; but 
for what ? Are the reservoirs to keep the water for them- 
selves ? No, but to have it flow out as fast as it flows in. 
If it does not flow out, it becomes stagnant. And just so 
with wealth. If God permits it to accumulate, permits a 
man to become a reservoir of it, and a man undertakes to 
legislate over it for himself, and to keep it for himself, it is 
sure to stagnate ; it breeds reptiles in the man's character, 
and the miserly surface shall cream and mantle with cor- 
ruption. 

In that creaming and mantling, a man may think that 
he sees nothing but gay and beautiful colors and flowers ; 
theatres, operas, rich magnificent dresses and furniture, del- 
icacies for the appetite, dinners with costly wines, mas- 
querades, and dances, the lusts of the flesh, the pride of the 
eye and the pride of life ; but if these are what floats up 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 77 

for a man's worship out of the reservoir of his wealth, the 
most nauseous toad-stool of God's making on the surface 
of the mould of the forest, or any handful of the green 
slime upon a stagnant pond, were full of radiant beauty 
and worth in the comparison. Indeed it is a wrong done 
to any of God's things, though they were but leaves rotting 
by the roadside, to compare men's selfish passions to them ; 
for the things that rot do it in obedience to God's laws, and 
there is a divine force in them that makes them rot, and 
they die to accomplish God's purposes. But the corruption 
of a man's passions, the activity of his animal and earthly 
propensities, in utmost self-gratification and indulgence, is 
the gangrene and death of his spiritual being. The turn- 
ing of God's bounties into the mere kindling stuff and fuel 
of those fires that shall drive the man's soul, as a fierce 
engine of death, away from God, what is that ? what name 
can be given to that ? 

A reservoir of wealth, or of any gifts that might be used 
for God, stolen from him, and put under lock and key for 
self, self-aggrandizement, self-indulgence, family- aggrandize- 
ment, worldly purposes, and things that perish in the using, 
is a fountain of guilt, and will be of misery to those who 
thus apply it. But let it flow forth as God intended, and 
it shall be pure, sweet, healthful, blessing both the giver and 
receiver. Let the stream of God's bounty, grace, and love 
flow into it and through it, and it shall never stagnate, but 
the bright, rippling, central current, that gives it motion and 
purpose, shall keep it ever fresh, pure, beautiful. 

Moreover, that current is a self-regulating power for the 
ebb and flow of the whole reservoir. The measures of a 
man's charities, since Christ Jesus, the Incarnation and 
Example of divine benevolence came into the world, are 
not determined by legal calculation and appointment, but 
are the work of willing, sanctified affections. Every man 
as he findeth in his heart, and as God hath prospered him, 
so let him give, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, 



78 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

how he said. It is more blessed to give than to receive. 
The greatest prosperity that a man can have from God is 
the gift of a heart that loves to give. Under the old Dis- 
pensation almost everything was ordered by law ; but what 
God began by law he carries on and perfects by grace. 
Whereas under the old legal Dispensation it was a law to 
give the tenth part of one's income to the Lord, under the 
new dispensation all giving was a voluntary thing. And 
certainly God ought to get more by grace than he does by 
law, though whether it be so or not, in particular cases, we 
cannot tell. But in truth by grace he gets, or will get, all ; 
for grace shall conquer all ; and so a man who, like the old 
Pharisee, gave tithes of all that he possessed, and then 
rested on that as a legal justification, did, on becoming a 
Christian, give all to God, to be used for him, as his stew- 
ard, instead of merely giving a legal part, and then saying, 
all the rest is mine. It is manifest that a man who had 
complied strictly with the terms of the law, in giving his 
tithes, might be just as covetous as ever in regard to all 
the rest ; but a man under grace has the covetousness 
itself broken up, and feels that all is the Lord's, and only 
lent to himself for a little season, to use for the Lord, and 
do good with as he has opportunity, do good by voluntary 
gifts, gifts by grace, not mere law. Every man cheerfully, 
according as God hath prospered him, for God loveth a 
cheerful giver. It is one of the very remarkable things in 
the change from the old dispensation to the new, that 
whereas the tithe law of benevolence was abolished, the 
law of a tenth part of every one's property devoted to 
God, no new law was put in its place. It was because 
God was then setting up the voluntary system, and would 
carry everything by grace, and heartfelt, cheerful, happy 
love. 

Now let us compare with this view, a few passages in 
God's Word intimately connected with it. It is of great 
importance that we have, as far as possible, a comparison of 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 79 

all the sides of our subject, as presented in God's wisdom. 
" Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I 
have kept me from the paths of the Destroyer." 

The first passage shall be from the Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians. " Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let 
him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, 
that he may have to give to him that needeth" Note, in 
this passage, the reason by which the habit of honest in- 
dustry is enforced upon the man, namely, that instead of 
being under the necessity of demanding help, he may have 
to give to him that needeth. The second shall be from 
the Epistle to the Thessalonians. " Study to be quiet, 
and to do your own business, and to work with your own 
hands, as we commanded you ; that ye may walk honestly 
towards them that are without, and that ye may have lack 
of nothing. — For even when we were with you, this we 
commanded you, that if any would not work, neither 
should he eat. For we hear that there are some which 
walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but 
are busy-bodies. Now them that are such we command 
and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness 
they work, and eat their own bread." " But if any pro- 
vide not for his own," continues the apostle to Timothy, 
" and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied 
the faith, and is worse than an infidel." In the Epistle to 
the Romans he commands that we owe no man anything, 
but to love one another, and that we be not slothful in 
business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. To the 
same general purport the injunction in Titus is given to all 
Christians, that they learn to maintain good works for 
necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful ; a passage 
which is supposed to enjoin a constant diligence in busi- 
ness for the purpose of a systematic benevolence. 

A man will not fail to note here the practical wisdom 
and beauty of Christianity, and the unparalleled loftiness 
of its motives, as revealed in these passages. The main 



80 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

argument by which an industrious attention to business is 
urged upon men, is that they may themselves possess the 
ability and exercise the habit, and enjoy the happiness of 
giving to those who have need. There are no extremes 
here, no impracticable separations between a man's business 
and his piety ; but his business is to be pursued as a part 
and for the sake of his piety. You are not commanded to 
turn aside from the pursuits of this world, to renounce 
them, and to go about preaching or praying as your only 
business ; bat you are to serve God in your own calling, 
and to pursue that industriously as a part of your religion. 
You are to trust in God, but you are to help yourself 
You are to labor for your own support and that of your 
family. And you are to do this, not to gain a mere support 
for them and yourself, but to be able also, if need be, to 
supply the wants of others. You are to work with all your 
energy, in an honest way, for an honest competence. You 
are to do this, not only that you may not be compelled to 
tax the charity of others for your support, but that you 
may have a surplus to give to the needy. If, after you 
have done your uttermost, trusting in God to gain your own 
livelihood, and also the ability to give to others, you are 
still poor, it is not your fault. God's discipline is upon 
you. But poverty is sin, if you are not using your utmost 
honest diligence to avoid it. 

Furthermore, one cannot but mark here the honorable- 
ncss of labor, manual labor, in the Bible. Whatever sys- 
tem of slavery there might have been then in existence, it 
was not one that made industry and labor dishonorable. 
That infamous degradation, or power of degradation, was 
reserved for the system of modern times. Paul himself 
has been marked as one of the most perfect gentlemen the 
world ever saw, but he labored, working with his own 
hands. He gained his livelihood by manual labor. Your 
professed gentlemen who refuse this, when necessary, or 
regard it as dishonorable, or not respectable, deeming idle- 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 81 

ness a characteristic of gentility, are stamped by Paul, 
singularly enough, as busy-bodies, working not at all ; 
dishonorably busy, but not honorably working. The praise 
of labor in God's Word, the honor put upon every employ- 
ment of honest industry, and the striking down of all dis- 
tinctions between rich and poor, except those of goodness, 
are characteristics of a divine revelation. 

But if you are commanded to be diligent in business, 
you are to do it always as serving the Lord. In all 
things you must have God and your duty to him in view, 
and that redeems every pursuit from selfishness and earth- 
liness, and dignifies every act of life, every labor of society, 
with the beauty of religion. The law of true piety is that 
you pursue your honest callings in obedience to God, and 
whatever you do, do it as to him. There is no necessary 
act or employment so poor and low, as not to come within 
not merely the possibility, but the obligation of this rule ; 
no position in life so obscure or painful, that may not, 
throughout, be irradiated with celestial light. 

Teach me, my God and King, 

In all things thee to see ; 
And what I do in anything 

To do it as for thee. 

All may of thee partake : 

Nothing can be so mean 
Which with this tincture, Far thy sake, 

Will not grow bright and clean. 

A servant with this clause 

Makes drudgery divine ; 
Who sweeps a room, as for God's laws, 

Makes that and the action fine. 

All these texts and principles lead us to the grand prin- 
ciple of love recorded by Paul in that sweet remembered 
declaration of Christ, "It is more blessed to give than to 
receive." And this is a declaration from the very depths 
of heaven, and carries the spirit and the happiness of hea- 
ven with it. 

4* 



82 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

For it is entirely true that when we are exercising our- 
selves in habits of benevolence, when we are thus, under 
God's grace, building up a giving and compassionate 
nature, we are, if I may dare so to speak, just helping God 
to conquer and destroy that which keeps us out of heaven, 
our own selfishness. And after the example of Paul, I 
think we may dare so to speak, for he represents Chris- 
tians as being, in this work, fellow-workers with God, 
according to God's working. When a man of wealth, 
amidst all the great dangers and temptations with which 
he is surrounded, steadily pursues his path for God, and 
forms, under God's grace, the rule of large giving according 
to his large means, he is anchoring himself in God and 
heaven ; he is just fastening safety-drags on that immortal 
soul of his, which, laden by the god of this world with the 
stuff of this world, was fiercely rushing down an inclined 
plane to ruin. Everything that he throws out for God and 
his fellow-beings, has a grappling-iron that holds fast, and 
checks his progress. Let him continue to give, till his 
heart has formed the habit of giving, till by God's grace 
he can begin to be able to say from his own experience, It 
is more blessed so give than to receive ; and although the 
god of this world thinks he is sure of his destruction on 
this inclined plane, yet he shall come to the bottom safe. 
It is a blessed discipline for the soul, that of giving. A 
man thinks he is doing good to others, but he is doing 
infinitely the most good to himself. In the barest literal 
reality of things, it is more blessed to give than to receive. 
Take the miserable theory of mere utilitarianism, which is 
the very lowest point to which man or devil can get down 
in theory-making ; go upon the material dry goods traffic, 
of quid pro quo, and every man who truly gives, receives 
infinitely more than he gives. 

Even leaving out of view the heavenliness, the divine 
beatitude and celestial state of the affections in the act of 
giving, which makes it positively, and at present, and with- 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 83 

out any regard to results or consequences, a sweeter, more 
delightful, more blessed exercise to give than to receive, 
that being the very triumph of love, the very spirit of 
heaven to realize this ; leaving that all out of view, and 
speaking only of the effect of giving, as a discipline upon 
the soul of the giver, and of the compound interest of profit 
which is sure to return to him from his gift, it is more 
profitable to give than to receive ; a man lays up more by 
giving than he does by receiving. There is that giveth 
and yet increaseth ; here is that arithmetic, not figures of 
speech, but figures of realities, by which it is demonstrable 
that the more a man gives, the more he has, the richer he 
is. It is better for him to give than it is to receive. You 
cannot make a selfish world or heart believe this, because 
selfishness cannot understand, feel, believe, the higher, 
heavenly, absolute ground, on which eternally it is true 
that it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is the 
province of creatures to receive ; God only can be said 
absolutely to give ; it is God's prerogative to give, man's 
only to receive. Therefore, every man who truly gives 
becomes like God. The exercise of giving is blessed be- 
cause it is God's exercise. The man who loves, blesses, 
gives, is the child of his Father in heaven ; and it is from 
the very heart of Incarnate Love, of God Incarnate, that 
this divine utterance comes, not in reference to results, 
rewards, or consequences, but in present and eternal reality 
and absolutism. It is more blessed to give than to receive. 
When a man can repeat that utterance from the heart, he 
is a changed man, a regenerated man, a new creature. 
Heaven is begun in him ; he is a saved man, for Christ is 
formed in him the hope of glory, and it is from Christ's 
grace, Christ's teachings, that he learned that utterance. 

Now in regard to all heavenly utterances it is true that 
our learning of them, our ability to repeat them, begins 
with lame, imperfect efforts. "We first command only 
single letters, then we read words of one, then of two, 



84 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

then of three syllables, till at length the whole sentence 
pours forth from the triumph of grace in the heart, like a 
whole anthem from a mighty church organ. This is the 
way we learn the exercise of heavenly love, and come to 
say from experience, It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive. Perhaps many acts of mere duty in giving, many 
mere obediences to the conscience, almost out of the bond- 
age of fear, will have to be performed, before the words of 
this great utterance can be spelled out as angels read them. 
Before it can be repeated hy heart, there will have to be 
many attempts at repetition, as a lesson. And every man 
should be at work upon this lesson, every rich man especially. 
Poor men seem to learn it more easily, and alas, often un- 
learn it, in a measure, in proportion as they grow rich. A 
rich man is under God's own training, when he is learning 
this lesson ; indeed rich or poor, that is the case. It is the 
lesson of heaven that we all must learn, if we would ever 
be happy, the lesson of self-denying love. 

But now let us see what was done with Demas' invita- 
tion. It is rather a singular station that Bunyan has given 
to this gentleman, who, you are aware, was at one time 
one of Paul's companions and fellow-laborers ; but here we 
find him acting as the overseer of this silver mine. A 
very courteous, fine-spoken, gentlemanly man, inviting the 
Pilgrims to come and see. We can see Demas, if we can- 
not see the mines. Some may think Bunyan has dealt 
hardly with Demas, in placing him here ; but Paul is very 
clear. Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present 
world. Most likely, the dangers that were then thicken- 
ing around Paul, in the work of the ministry, acting con- 
jointly with some tempting offer of advantage in business, 
drew Demas away, and we see him no more, till we meet 
him here at the mouth of this mine, calling to the Pilgrims, 
Ho, turn aside hither, and I will show you a thing. If 
Demas still kept his profession of Christianity, we suppose 
the god of this world was very glad to get a professor of 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 85 

religion to act in this capacity in the mining speculation. 
It gave increased dignity and respectability to the whole 
thing, and doubtless there were many professors of religion 
in the plain of Ease well acquainted with Demas, and who 
had made investments in the mines, and committed the 
main care of their stocks to him. He was a gentlemanly 
man at any rate. But then he had to say, Turn aside 
hither ; and of that word Turn aside Christian just now 
was very fearful ; and before he had gone much farther on 
his pilgrimage he wished he had all the way continued as 
fearful. Now he is on his guard. 

What thing, says Christian, so deserving as to turn us 
out of the way ? 

Why, says Demas, here is a silver mine, and some 
digging in it for treasure; if you will come, with a little 
pains you may richly provide for yourselves. It is open to 
every one, no tax, no monopoly, and nothing to do but dig. 
Now the youngest of the Pilgrims was somewhat tempted 
at this offer. He thought they might at least go and ex- 
amine the ground ; he had just then forgotten the words, 
Pray that ye enter not into temptation. Then said Hope- 
ful, let us go and see. If Hopeful had been alone in the 
pilgrimage, he had gone ; but two are better than one ; 
and the Lord of the way kept him from destruction by 
means of his fellow-pilgrim. Not I, said Christian, I have 
heard of this place before now, and how many have there 
been slain ; and besides, that treasure is a snare to those 
that seek it ; for it hindereth them in their pilgrimage. 
Then Christian called to Demas, saying, Is not the way 
dangerous ? hath it not hindered many in their pilgrimage ? 

Then answered Demas, Not very dangerous, except to 
those that are careless. But withal he blushed as he spoke. 
Not very dangerous. Demas could not make up his mind 
to say, Not at all. Even those whose souls are most ab- 
sorbed with wealth are perfectly willing to admit that the 
pursuit of it is full of danger, but then so is everything, 



bb THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

they say, and a man must take care of himself. But De- 
mas knew something from experience, which he did not 
care to tell. 

Now these men, Money-love, By-ends, Save-all, and 
Hold-the-world, were but a little distance behind Christian 
and Hopeful. I will warrant you, said Hopeful, when By- 
ends comes up, if he hath the same invitation as we, he 
will turn in thither to see. No doubt thereof, said Chris- 
tian, for his principles lead him that way, and a hundred to 
one but he dies there. Then Demas called again, But will 
you not come over and see ? Then Christian finished the 
matter with great decision for himself and Hopeful, and 
roundly answered, saying, Demas, thou art an enemy to the 
right ways of the Lord of this way, and hast been already 
condemned for thine own turning aside, by one of his Ma- 
jesty's Judges ; and why seekest thou to bring us into the 
like condemnation ? Besides, if we at all turn aside, our 
Lord the King will certainly hear thereof, and will there 
put us to shame, where we would stand with boldness be- 
fore him. Then Demas cried again that he was also one 
of their fraternity, and that if they would tarry a little, he 
also himself would walk with them. He still held to his 
profession of the Christian, and, mistaken man, perhaps to 
the hope. Then said Christian, What is thy name ? is it 
not the same by the which I have called thee ? Yes, said 
Demas, my name is Demas, I am the son of Abraham. I 
know you, said Christian ; Gehazi was your great grand- 
father, and Judas your father, and you have trod in their 
steps ; it is but a devilish prank that thou usest ; thy father 
was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better re- 
ward. Assure thyself that when we come to the King, we 
will do him word of this thy behavior. This was plain 
dealing, but Christian was always plain, and he thought 
the case deserved severity, as it surely did. And so they 
went their way. 

They were safe, by God's grace, from this temptation ; 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 87 

they had not entered into it. They had passed through all 
the allurements of the Plain of Ease ; the spirit of the 
temptations there had not entered into them; and when 
they came to the mines, they did not enter into temptation, 
they did not go and see. They were kept from breaking 
the hedge, and the hedge kept them. 

But now, victorious Pilgrims, be not high-minded, but 
fear. It remains to be seen whether, if you forget your de- 
pendence on the Lord Jesus, and his commands, though 
you have now resisted a temptation that has overcome By- 
ends and his companions, you will not yourselves be found 
entering into, and overcome by a smaller temptation even 
than that by which they were ruined. Let him that stand- 
eth, take heed lest he fall. 



PART II. 

GOING TO SEE, AND ENTERING IN. 

By this time By-ends and his companions were come 
again within sight, and they at the first beck went over to 
Demas. Now whether they fell into the pit by looking 
over the brink thereof, or whether they went down to dig, 
or whether they were smothered in the bottom by the damps 
that commonly arise, of these things I am not certain ; but 
this I observed, that they never were seen again in the way. 
It was not likely that they would be. And this whole 
chapter of the Pilgrimage is a very solemn comment on 
those verses in Paul, " They that will be rich fall into temp- 
tation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, 
which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the 
love of money is the root of all evil : which while some 
coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced 
themselves through with many sorrows." 



88 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

They that will be rich, supremely determined upon that, 
they are always in haste to be rich ; and God's law in this 
world, and we are inclined to think in all worlds, is just this : 
nothing truly good in haste. It is a marvellous off-shoot 
of God's great plan for redeeming our world, that things 
are so constituted, in spite of all the art and power of Sa- 
tan, that ordinarily men cannot get rich in a moment. If 
Satan could make sudden riches the rule of his adminis- 
tration as god of this world, if our great God and Saviour 
permitted that, very few souls would ever be converted and 
saved. There is an ingredient in sudden riches, of a search- 
ing, poisonous, subtle power, that very few constitutions are 
proof against. 

The stress is laid in Scripture on the thirst for wealth 
and on hasty wealth. He that maketh haste to be rich, 
God says, shall not be innocent. This declaration, by him 
that knoweth our hearts, is exceedingly solemn ; and by 
how many affecting and solemn instances in every age is it 
sustained ! But apart from direct crime, the effect of 
sudden wealth upon the character is disastrous. Gener- 
ally men become rich by hard labor ; it may not be by 
manual labor, though it may have been begun with that, 
founded in that. More ordinarily, it is the work of all the 
faculties, both of mind and body. It is energy and solidity 
in some estimable qualities inwrought into habit. It is 
attention to the tides of affairs, enterprise, good judgment, 
method, accuracy, careful reckoning, devotion to business 
and not to pleasure, knowledge of men, the wise selection 
of markets, a quick sight of reality and discernment of 
falsehood, the seizure of what is practicable amidst a mass 
of propositions or possibilities. It is the wise adjustment of 
plans, and energy in the pursuit of them. It is the know- 
ing where to stop, as well as when and where to set out. 
Im methodical and careless men cannot be wealthy; theatre- 
goers and pleasure-seekers cannot be wealthy. Your mer- 
chants will not even have a clerk who runs after the plays, 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 89 

and is the companion of actors and actresses. Men be- 
come rich by habits of self-restraint and industry. And 
men who acquire money in this gradual and indefatigable 
way, are all the while surrounded by influences that tend 
much to check and contradict the inordinate passion for 
wealth, or at least prevent it from becoming the insane 
greed of the miser. They have innumerable calls upon 
their generosity and charity; they have courtesies to exer- 
cise one towards another : they meet with losses to balance, 
and hold in, the passion of avarice. They have the cares of 
their families, the education of their children, the calls and 
duties of social and civil life all pressing upon them ; and 
they constantly encounter events to teach them their depend- 
ence upon God, and to make them feel, if they will heed the 
lesson, the danger of trusting in uncertain riches. All this 
constitutes a discipline, which may very much keep down 
and restrain, though it cannot cure, the ruling evil of a 
man's nature. It holds his passions in check, and gives 
opportunity for other things to grow besides evil. 

On the other hand, riches that are gotten not by the 
exercise of superior faculties, not by patience, energy, 
enterprise and industry, but by gambling, by hazardous 
and lucky speculation, by sudden windfalls, or by hasty 
adventures not unmingled with fraud, are very different in 
their effect upon the character. They tend to uproot all 
principle ; they throw a man afloat, instead of fastening 
him. They overset or intoxicate the mind, not satisfy it. 
They rather kindle the passions, instead of disciplining or 
restraining them. Few men can bear a sudden accession 
of great prosperity of any kind. You could throw a five 
pound weight of small shot at a man, one by one, with 
yoar whole force, and not hurt him, though you should 
strike him in the head with every one of them ; but hit 
him with a single piece of iron of the same weight, aiid 
you will kill him. 

Moreover there is a great difference between seeking 



90 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

wealth in the long run, by a wise interchange of the great 
commodities of cities and nations, by buying and selling, 
by manufacturing and trading, and the thousand appli- 
ances of a world-wide commerce, and seeking the images 
and representatives of wealth directly, the yellow gold 
itself. The other may be an undue chronic excitement, 
but this last is truly the yellow fever. There is as great 
a difference as Carlyle makes between a sincere pagan 
idolatry, that ignorantly worships God under the form of 
idols, and an insincere, lying, hypocritical idolatry, like 
that which the idolatrous Jews took up, when they knew 
better, worshipping the idols themselves. When it comes 
to the real worship of idols, instead of the things which 
the idols represent, it is the uttermost depth of human 
degradation. And just so the miserly worship of yellow 
gold is the basest of passions. Place a man in a position 
in which, by a few years' honest and dilligent application 
of his faculties, he will be sure of a fortune, and you are, 
in fact, running him in a mould of character, which may be 
very favorable to goodness, which certainly does not exclude 
it, but in which, availing himself of the grace of God, he 
may make almost anything of himself that he pleases. 
Place a man at the mouth of a gold mine, with a shovel 
and pick-axe, and we do not think you see any immediate 
discipline of goodness or prospect of virtue there. His 
frame will tremble with the excitement of pure avarice, 
and as he digs, digs, digs, the yellow dirt itself, if he be 
not unnaturally careful, gets the fascination of a snake 
over him. He is very much in danger either of becoming 
a miser or a spendthrift, of going to one extreme or the 
other. There is no hunger that is so intense, so biting, as 
that after gold in the form of gold. The miser would eat 
and drink his gold, if he could. A sort of metallic poison 
seems to get into his veins, into his heart. There is great 
danger in this. 

But all this danger Christian and Hopeful escaped, and 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 91 

with comparatively great ease. They were very decided. 
Then said Christian to Hopeful, Let us not stir a step, but 
still keep on our way. This was good advice and determi- 
nation, and it needed no second word to Hopeful to set him 
right, for he confided greatly in the knowledge and Christian 
experience of his brother, and was willing to be guided by 
him, and so they went on their way. So they were past 
that danger, by the grace of God. But there was another 
before them, and Christian perhaps began already to be a 
little sensible of his own superiority and great growth in 
grace, a thing which generally goes before a fall. Moreover 
Christians are not always the same ; and a man who is 
strong one day against a particular temptation, will be over- 
come, it may be, another day, if he is at all self-relying or 
off his guard, by another, even though the last be weaker 
than the first. It was but a little space after this in their 
pilgrimage, a few days and nights of delightful travelling 
along the River of Life, which here ran sweetly by the 
wayside, that they came to a rough place of road, and By- 
path Meadow beside it. Now who would have thought 
that this same Christian, who was so bold and determined 
against the mine, especially against the very idea of turn- 
ing out of the way to see it, and who had almost chided 
Hopeful, as Hopeful did himself, for having entertained 
such a thought, that this same Christian, on a much less 
temptation would be the first to propose going out of the 
way for the sake of ease, and the one to advise and lead 
Hopeful out of the way. They had both come safely and 
faithfully all the way across the Plain of Ease, and past 
the gold region, without either stopping or turning aside. 
But now they begin to be troubled at the weariness of the 
way, and Christian looks wishfully over into the meadow, 
and without entering into any consultation with Hopeful 
as to the lawfulness of his thought, suddenly says to him, 
If this meadow lieth along by our way-side, let 's go over 
into it. They had both been walking along in silence, per- 



92 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

haps with the same thought, but we do not think Hopeful 
would have given it utterance, if Christian had not begun. 
However, Christian waited for nothing, but went to the 
stile to see ; he that had been so dead set against turning 
out of the way even to look at the mine ; and behold a path 
lay along by the way on the other side of the fence. 

'T is according to my wish, said Christian, here is the easi- 
est going ; come, good Hopeful, and let us go over. Chris- 
tian has forgotten, now, his own sermon a few days ago on the 
danger and sinfulness of turning aside to see, and he would 
now go straight over. And now it is Hopeful that puts in a 
warning. But how, said Hopeful, if this path should lead 
us out of the way? That's not likely, said Christian; 
look, doth it not go along by the way-side ? And now, as 
before Hopeful yielded to Christian's warnings not to go, 
he now yields to his persuasions to go ; the example and 
advice of the older and more experienced Christian has as 
much power against the right way, as it had before for it. 
So Hopeful being persuaded by his fellow, went after him 
over the stile. When they were gone over, and were got 
into the path, they found it very easy to their feet ; and 
withal, they, looking before them, espied a man walking as 
they did, and his name was Vain Confidence ; so they called 
after him, and asked him whither that way led. He said 
to the Celestial Gate. Curious ! to see how, instantly, as 
soon as the Pilgrims begin to turn from the right way, 
they ask about it of those who are walking with them or 
before them, and not of the Lord of the way. And then 
the confidence of Vain Confidence ! To the Celestial Gate, 
to be sure ; am not I going that way myself, and should I 
be wrong? Look, said Christian to Hopeful, did not I tell 
you so ? by this you may see we are right. So the echo 
of a man's own evil or questionable word or thought saith, 
Hear what a multitude of voices; we are surely right. So 
they followed, and he went before them. But behold the 
night came on, and it grew very dark ; so that they that 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 93 

were behind lost the sight of him that went before. O how 
soon it grows dark when we leave God's word, and run 
after oar own ease, when we leave God's way and run after 
our own way ! Dark indeed! It is a dread darkness now 
settling down over Christian and Hopeful. And you see 
here how much more easily a man may be tempted aside 
from the path of duty by the suggestions of his own self- 
seeking heart, than by external temptations when he is 
somewhat on his guard against them. If a man by the 
way-side should invite you in ever so gentlemanly a way 
to do a thing against conscience, you would repel the temp- 
tation, knowing that he as well as yourself is aware of the 
evil. But go a little farther, and let self or the love of ease 
present some out-of-the-way gratification, and you will per- 
haps not only go yourself to the stile to see, but at once 
you will climb over and perhaps persuade others to do like- 
wise. The temptations which Satan presents in our own 
hearts are sometimes more dangerous than all others. 

You may see how the heart deceives itself, by just turn- 
ing back to the brave conversation of these Christians in 
the joy of their victory over their former temptation and 
their escape from that danger, and comparing it with their 
conduct now in getting over the stile. Just after they 
had come safe off from Demas and the mines, they passed 
a strange fearful-looking old monument, which they at 
length discovered to be the pillar of salt into which Lot's 
wife was changed, because she looked back with a covetous 
heart when the angels were fleeing with her from Sodom. 
Ah, my brother, said Christian, this is a seasonable sight 
after the invitation of Demas to come over and view the 
Hill Lucre ; and had we gone over, as he desired us, and 
as thou my brother wast inclining to do, we had, for aught 
I know, been made ourselves a spectacle for those that shall 
come after to behold. Hopeful's ingenuous confession is 
beautiful. I am sorry, said he, that I was so foolish, and am 
made to wonder that I am not now as Lot's wife ; for 



94 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

wherein was the difference betwixt her sin and mine ? She 
only looked back, and I had a desire to go see. Let grace 
be adored, and let me be ashamed that ever such a thing 
should be in my heart. Then said Christian, let us take 
notice of what we see here, for our help for time to come. 
This woman escaped one judgment, for she fell not by the 
destruction of Sodom ; yet she was destroyed by another, 
as we see she is turned into a pillar of salt. True, said 
Hopeful, and she may be to us both caution and example ; 
caution that we should shun her sin, or a sign of what 
judgment will overtake such as shall not be prevented by 
this caution. But above all I muse at one thing, to wit, 
how Demas and his fellows can stand so confidently yon- 
der to look for that treasure, which this woman for looking 
behind her after (for we read not that she stept one foot out 
of the way) was turned into a pillar of salt ; specially since 
the judgment that overtook her, did make her an example 
within sight of where they are ; for they cannot choose but 
see her, did they but lift up their eyes. 

It is a thing to be wondered at, said Christian, and it 
argueth that their heart is grown desperate in that case. 
And it is most rationally to be concluded that such as sin 
in the sight, yea and in despite of such examples as are set 
continually before them to caution them to the contrary, 
must be partakers of severest judgments. — Doubtless, said 
Hopeful, thou hast spoken the truth ; but what a mercy is 
it that neither thou, but especially I, am not made myself 
this example ! This ministereth occasion to us to thank 
God, to fear before him, and always to remember Lot's 
wife. 

Yes ! but how soon they themselves forget all this ! And 
what a picture is this of the heart's unsuspected deceitful- 
ness and power of self-delusion. A few days afterwards, 
under the power of temptation, they themselves forgot all 
this ; Christian, the experienced man, led the way over the 
stile, and they entered into Giant Despair's Castle. " Ex- 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 95 

perience, like the stern lights of a ship, only serves to illu- 
mine the path that has been passed over." 

My brethren, says James, count it all joy, when ye fall 
into divers temptations ! A singular congratulation truly ! 
It would have come like vinegar upon nitre to poor Chris- 
tian and Hopeful, that terrible night of their distress amidst 
storm and darkness. And yet, it had been all joy if they 
had passed that stile of temptation without going over it, 
according to their " brave" conversation about Lot's wife. 
James does not say, Count it all joy when ye enter into 
temptation. Entering into temptations is a very different 
thing from falling into them by the providence of God for 
faith's trial. Blessed is the man that endureth tempta- 
tion, says James, and the endurance is supposed in the first 
text, where we are to count the meeting of temptations all 
joy. Be it that in that case the temptations mainly mean 
trials, and not allurements to sin ; yet even temptations to 
wander from God are blessings, if resisted, for they issue 
in greater grace and firmness. But the entering into temp- 
tation is a very different thing, as different as Christian's 
going to the stile and getting over was different from De- 
mas' calling to him out of the way, and being refused. 

The endurance of temptation is good for two things, for 
the discovery of the wickedness there is in ourselves, and 
the grace there is in our Saviour. We do not know how 
to value Christ aright, till we find how sinful we are our- 
selves ; and we do not learn to rest upon Christ's strength, 
till we find we have none of our own but weakness. If we 
did not see and feel our own sinfulness and wretchedness, 
we should not feel his preciousness at all ; and so, if God 
kept us from all circumstances and conjunctions, which 
would bring out our sins, and disclose the hidden evils of 
our hearts, we might go on with a fair form of piety, and 
without falling into any particular snares, be all the while 
going further and further from Christ, and becoming more 
and more ignorant both of him and of ourselves. 



96 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

" Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.'' 
" Lead us not into temptation." The prayer is not, Let us 
not be tempted, suffer us not to endure temptations ; but, 
Let us not enter into temptation. There is something 
very emphatic in those words enter into. A man may be 
exposed to temptation, and by the grace of God come off 
victorious, and be the stronger for the temptation, if he 
resists it promptly, if he flies trembling to Christ. But if 
he dallies with it, if he dwells upon its circumstances, if he 
is not watching and praying, if he undertakes to see how 
far he may go in it without falling, if he but half rejects 
it, and half entertains it, then he is entering into tempta 
tion, then he is in fearful danger. He is entering into it as 
in a cloud, surrounded by which he ceases to behold eternal 
realities, or sees them so dimly, as not to feel their force. 
And the deeper he enters into it, the farther he is from 
God. It is a stupefying as well as a darkening cloud, an 
atmosphere that paralyzes the spiritual energies. Let a 
man once enter into temptation, and Satan has great 
power over him. Let a man play the part of Parley the 
Porter, and the foes of his soul are soon within the citadel. 
It is a Latin maxim of great wisdom in regard to evil 
habits, Obsta principiis — resist the beginnings ; and this 
is of infinite importance in regard to temptation. Resist it 
wholly at once, take not a step upon its borders, enter not 
into it at all, but turn from it with supreme decision. Go 
not up to the stile to look over, and see how inviting the 
enclosure, for when you do this you are entering into temp- 
tation, your next step will probably be over the stile, and 
there, while you think you are keeping in sight of the 
King's highway, and can return to it in a moment, you 
may wander from it fatally, and, almost before you are 
aware, find yourself fast locked in Giant Despair's Castle. 
The temptation to neglect prayer is one of those tempta- 
tions in the Christian life, which, if a man gives way to it, 
opens the door to all other temptations. So our blessed 



THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 97 

Lord says watch and pray, and watch unto prayer, for 
while that is done, the door of other temptations is shut, 
the soul neither enters into them, nor they into the soul. 
But if prayer be neglected, the soul is in an exposed con- 
dition, ready to be overcome even by slight temptations. 

In that very beautiful and instructive allegory by Han- 
nah Moore, entitled Parley the Porter, there is mention 
made of a pleasant garden surrounding the Castle, which 
had been committed by the Lord to his servants to keep, 
and a thick hedge separating this garden from the wilder- 
ness, which was infested by robbers. The master of the 
Castle charged his servants in his absence always to keep 
within these limits ; and he told them that they would 
consult their own safety and happiness, as well as show 
their love to him, by not even venturing over to the extrem- 
ity of their bounds ; for that he who goes as far as he 
dares, always shows a wish to go farther than he ought, 
and commonly does so. So it was found that the nearer 
these servants kept to the castle, and the farther from the 
hedge , the more ugly the wilderness appeared. But the 
nearer they approached the forbidden bounds, their own 
home appeared more dull, and the wilderness more delight- 
ful. And this the master knew when he gave his orders, 
for he never did or said anything without a good reason. 
And when his servants sometimes desired an explanation 
of the reason, he used to tell them they would understand 
it when they came to the other house : for it was one of 
the pleasures of that house, that it would explain all the 
mysteries of this, and any little obscurities in the master's 
conduct would then be made quite plain. 

Thus it is, that the nearer we keep to God, and the 
farther from sin and temptation, the more delightful is the 
life of holiness and the more hateful does sin appear. But 
when we venture near the hedge, and endeavor at first to 
peep over it, and then begin to open it, taking off at first 
a handful of leaves, then a little sprig, then a bough or two, 

5 



98 THE TWO TEMPTATIONS. 

we are entering into temptation, and holiness seems diffi- 
cult, and sin more and more tempting. Every glance that 
is taken through the broken hedge makea the thoughts of 
the master's castle more irksome, and increases the desire 
to get out into the wilderness. The only way to deal 
safely with temptations is not to enter into them, but to 
keep them as much as possible at a distance^ and to keep 
as far as possible even from the hedge. Temptations to 
sin are very different from trials and afflictions for the 
removal of sin. We ought not to be too much afraid of 
these last, but we cannot well be too much afraid of the 
first. 



THE LAKE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

A CHILD'S LETTER AND LESSON. 



There was once a little stream among the mountains, so 
small that it was lost in the first sand-bed across which it 
attempted to make its way. But God designed to make 
of this rill a great, wide, beautiful lake, that might, if need 
be, remain to all time, majestic and glorious. Whereupon 
he hedged the rill about with high restraints, and threw 
across it an impenetrable barrier of mountains. Thus dis- 
ciplined, it grew upon itself, and rose and expanded, till in 
process of time it did indeed become a deep, majestic water, 
into which the cliffs looked down with wonder, to see them- 
selves and the heavens so perfectly reflected, crystal clear. 

But now the lake grew proud, and said within itself and 
to itself, I am too much shut up and confined. The restraint 
upon me is unworthy of so great a body, unworthy of a free 
state. I ought to have scope to exercise my sovereign will, 
and be governed by it. Besides, why shut myself up in 
this basin, when I am worthy to spread all over the world ? 
So grand a creature as I am ought not to be restricted 
within such narrow limits, but to go roaming, and admired 
in every continent. I will be free. 

Now, the silly lake did not consider for a moment, did 
not even once think, that that very imprisonment was the 
cause of all its greatness and all its beauty ; and all its 
usefulness too, so that ten thousand Croton aqueducts 
might have been carried from it, if need be, to ten thousand 
cities ; and, indeed, a beautiful river ran from it continu- 
ally. Moreover, it forgot its origin, so weak and low, forgot 



100 THE LAKE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

the time when it was like an infant in the cradle, and would 
have been lost in getting across the first sand-bank. It had 
grown up, only because God had restrained it, and now it 
had got so large, that it threw off all humility, all thoughts 
of subjection, and became boisterous and proud. 

But pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit 
before a fall, as we shall see. The lake brooded upon these 
wicked thoughts, till at length it lost all patience and self- 
control, and began to beat madly against the mountain 
ramparts, that hemmed it in, and preserved it in power 
and beauty. For some time its efforts were all ineffectual ; 
the mountains remained steady at their post, and the over- 
hanging cliffs looked down in amazement to see the calm 
and beautiful lake so ruffled and distorted, lashing itself 
into such vain fury. But when there is an evil will, there 
is always an evil way. A desire after sin within us, always 
finds tempting occasions without us. 

There were certain persons envious of the great, beauti- 
ful lake, because it was not in the dominions of their own 
State ; and at the same time that these evil passions and 
causes of ruin were working within, they laid a plan to de- 
stroy all its greatness, from without. They began to un- 
dermine the mountain barrier, and succeeded in producing 
a great avalanche from without, so that the swelling and 
pressing of the lake from within began to produce some 
impression. At length, one dark night, when a dreadful 
storm was raging, the lake burst impetuously through, and 
thundered down into the valley, carrying terrific devasta- 
tion in its course. The next morning there was nothing 
to be seen of it but a bed of sand where it formerly rested, 
and a long pathway of ruins — rocks, sand and gravel — 
where it rushed away. It had gained its freedom, but it 
had destroyed itself ; it had burst through all restraint, but 
in doing so, it had sacrificed the causes of its beauty, its 
grandeur, its life. It was all gone and perished. 

Now, my dear little children, and you ye large children 



THE LAKE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 101 

with straps to your pantaloons, listen to the moral of my 
story. It has two applications : the first, to every one of 
us as individuals ; and the second, to our country. Let no 
man think that true freedom consists in deliverance from 
all restraint. Let every man think, that in order to be 
good and great, he must be restrained and hemmed in on 
every side. The providence and the word of God must 
encircle and confine him. If he wishes to do great good to 
the world, let him be assured that the lake of his good in- 
tentions must be confined by the word of God, and that if 
he bursts this barrier, the cataract of his benevolence will 
only cover the earth ten feet deep with mud and ruin, and 
in the end will come to nothing. 

If he wishes to be very large and free, let him remem- 
ber that it is nothing but the truth can make him free, and 
that it was a great king who said, " I will run in the way 
of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart." 
A large heart keeps confined within God's commandments, 
and that is the only way in which it can be made and kept 
large ; and then a perennial stream of goodness runs from 
it. If he chafes at the barrier, let him remember that 
without it he would be lost in the first sand -bank. If he 
is disposed to be proud of his greatness, let him remember 
that it is only God who has built him up and can keep him. 
And, at all hazards, let him keep within the word of God. 

I have elsewhere said that the human mind is like a 
boy's kite, needing to be confined if it would steadily soar. 
So the human reason must be tied to the word of God, or 
it cannot fly. My dear little child, did you ever see the 
boys playing with a kite ? Many of the large children, 
to whom I am speaking, have played with kites themselves, 
when they were not much larger than you are, when they 
were no bigger than the rill that grew into a lake. Did 
you ever see a little boy's paper kite in the air when 
the string broke — how it began to waver, and go sidelong, 
and then plunged head foremost to the ground ? Just so it 



102 THE LAKE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

is with the human reason, when it casts loose from God's 
word. Down it comes to the ground, just like a broken 
balloon, and woe to him that trusted in it. He thought he 
was going up to the third heavens, but ten to one it will 
land him in some wild marsh, where he will never find his 
way out, or a thousand miles at sea, where he will struggle 
on and be drowned. I know many men, who have gone up 
in the balloon, and come down in the mud. 

The second application of the bursting of the lake is to 
our country ; and you, my dear little child, young as you 
are, are enough of a politician to know that our country 
cannot be great and happy unless in obedience to God's 
word. They that are our enemies, would undermine our 
freedom and happiness by destroying the Sabbath, and 
casting off the authority of God's word, so that they may 
make a breach in the great barrier of divine truth that 
protects our institutions. And if they should succeed in 
doing this, then it would be very easy for wicked dema- 
gogues and infidels to raise such an internal proud storm, 
that the mountains would give way, and our great and beau- 
tiful lake of liberty and happiness would go to destruction. 

When we were a little rill, and God threw such kind 
restraints around us, to make us a broad, deep lake, then 
we were keepers at home, and waited on Providence. But 
now we begin to think the Divine Providence and word 
too narrow and strait to confine our mighty genius, and 
some talk as if we had a mission, having begun with Mex- 
ico, to extend the area of freedom all round the world, 
taking Cuba first by the way. But our mission is, simply, 
to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our 
God, and we had better see* to it that all our people at 
home, black and white, enjoy real liberty, before we under- 
take to extend the area of freedom. 

But I find my letter is getting long ; and having per- 
formed my promise, and more, by giving you both a story 
and a sermon, I shall bid you good-bye. 



THE WISDOM OF ANIMALS. 



A FABLE AFTER THE MANNER OF JESOF. 



There was once upon a time a great union proposed of 
all the beasts against their enemies. The Lion and the 
Tiger, the Elephant and the Rhinoceros, the Camel, the 
Dromedary and the Hippopotamus, the Horse and the Ox, 
the Cat, the Fox, the Wolf, the Sheep, the Dog, all came 
in convention to discuss the matter. They agreed to lay 
aside their antagonistic propensities against one another, to 
respect each other's rights, to live in peace among them- 
selves, and to unite in a common defence of the animal 
republic. Things were in this happy state, when a Hyena 
got up in the assembly, and stated that the race of Hyenas 
was made before any other beasts had an existence, and 
that the lordship over all the beasts was so committed to 
that race, that no beast could be considered as belonging 
to the animal republic, except under that lordship. This 
was a very bold and arrogant speech, but the Hyena stated 
that all antiquity was in his favor. 

It were vain to attempt to describe the angry discussion 
to which these pretensions on the part of the Hyena gave 
rise. It is sufficient to say* that they were put down and 
utterly rejected in the assembly, many of the beasts having 
shown with great clearness the dreadful wars and persecu- 
tions to which these pretensions had given rise in past 
times, others having demonstrated the iniquity of such 
pretensions on the part of any beast whatever, and others 



104 THE WISDOM OF ANIMALS. 

having proved that the Hyena had been, with these preten- 
sions, as far as he could be, an all-devouring tyrant, and 
that it was necessary to guard against him for the future. 
They compelled the Hyena to the alternative of either 
withdrawing from the union, or withdrawing his own pre- 
tensions to the government, and so, rather than be regarded 
as a universal enemy, he chose to swallow his griefs in 
silence. 

It happened on a time after this that a history of the 
beasts was published, which contained, among other things, 
a clause as to their original and universal equality. A 
convention of the beasts was held, in which, among other 
business, they determined to give this book their approba- 
tion, and to have it circulated as extensively as possible. 
In this convention the Hyena got up and stated that he 
had great objections to the book as it was, for it went 
against what his particular race considered as their right, 
and would be regarded by all the Hyenas as a sectarian 
book, and contrary to the rules of their union. Strange as 
it may seem, for the sak£ of peace, some of the beasts 
were for altering the book according to the suggestions of 
the Hyena, not seeing the whole tendency of the move- 
ment. And though the author of the book was a wise old 
Lion, who had his den among the mountains, where they 
might have sent to consult him on such an important point, 
they were for cutting out some of his dearest opinions, 
without consulting him at all. 

In this predicament a sagacious Elephant arose and 
said to the assembly, "It seems to me very surprising 
that the proposition of our brother Hyena should be enter- 
tained for a moment. It seems strange to me that any 
members of this convention do not see at once that even 
to receive it is to receive an insult to us all, and to adopt it 
would be just cutting off' our own heads. For when our 
union was first entered into, it was on the ground of uni- 
versal equality, and our brother Hyena was admitted into 



THE WISDOM OF ANIMALS. 105 

it only with the understanding that his inordinate and 
absurd pretensions, which you all remember, were to be 
withdrawn out of it. Now do you not see, that in propos- 
ing to have this clause as to our equality stricken out of 
this book of history, he does it not out of the desire of 
peace and union, but out of an ambition to rule? Do you 
not see that in claiming to have this stricken out, he de- 
mands from us a palpable and plain confession that we 
are inferior to him ? I should be ashamed of any beast 
who would be ready to make such a confession, and to 
make it for the pretended sake of union would be just to 
introduce war and prevent all possibility of union. Let 
the Hyena and all his race dwell apart, if they choose, and 
crack bones in the desert, but let them not dare to come 
here and tell us that in publishing the declaration of our 
equality in dignity and rights, we are publishing sectarian 
matter, and matter offensive to him and his fellow Hyenas. 
They would be glad indeed, if they could, to have all our 
standards abolished, and so be able to steal in with their 
pretensions, till by and by they will assert them as an 
established law. For my part, I would rather lose my 
trunk, than vote to pass the resolution of the Hyena, or 
even admit it under consideration. On the contrary, I 
move that he be called to order, and censured for introduc- 
ing it." 

The speech of the Elephant, during which his large ears 
waved like the gray locks of an old Nestor, carried the 
whole assembly. They cast out the proposition of the 
Hyena, and resolved to print the book as it was, and so 
the ambitious beast concluded once more to swallow his 
griefs and his pretensions, and to wait for another oppor- 
tunity. 

Here is wisdom. The number of the Beast is 

SIX HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX, 
and his name is — PRELACY. 

5 * 



DEACON GILES' DISTILLERY. 

"INQUIRE AT AMOS GILES' DISTILLERY." 



Some time ago the writer's notice was arrested by an 
advertisement in one of the newspapers, which closed with 
words similar to the following : " Inquire at Amos Giles' 
Distillery." The reader may suppose, if he choose, that 
the following story was a dream, suggested by that phrase. 

Deacon Giles was a man who loved money, and was 
never troubled with tenderness of conscience. His father 
and his grandfather before him had been distillers, and the 
same occupation had come to him as an heirloom in the 
family. The still-house was black with age, as well as 
with the smoke of furnaces that never went out, and the 
fumes of tortured ingredients, ceaselessly converted into 
alcohol. It looked like one of Vulcan's Stithies, trans- 
lated from the infernal regions into this world. Its stench 
filled the atmosphere, and it seemed as if drops of poisonous 
alcoholic perspiration might be made to ooze out from any 
one of its timbers or clapboards on a slight pressure. Its 
owner was a treasurer to a Bible Society ; and he had a 
little counting-room in one corner of the distillery where he 
sold Bibles. 

He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house. 
Any one of those Bibles would have told him this, but he 
chose to learn it from experience. It was said that the 
Worm of the Still lay coiled in the bosom of his family, 
and certain it is that one of its members had drowned him- 



DEACON GILES' DISTILLERY. 107 

self in the vat of hot liquor, in the bottom of which a skel- 
eton was some time after found, with heavy weights tied to 
the ancle bones. Moreover, Deacon Giles' temper was none 
of the sweetest, naturally ; and the liquor he drank, and 
the fires and spirituous fumes among which he lived, did 
nothing to soften it. If his workmen sometimes fell into 
his vats, he himself oftener fell out with his workmen. 
This was not to be wondered at, considering the nature of 
their wages, which, according to no unfrequent stipulation, 
would be as much raw rum as they could drink. 

Deacon Giles worked on the Sabbath. He would neither 
suffer the fires of the distillery to go out, nor to burn while 
he was idle ; so he kept as busy as they. One Saturday 
afternoon his workmen had quarrelled, and all went off in 
anger. He was in much perplexity for want of hands to do 
the work of the devil on the Lord's day. In the dusk of 
the evening a gang of singular-looking fellows entered the 
door of the distillery. Their dress was wild and uncouth, 
their eyes glared, and their language had a tone that was 
awful. They offered to work for the Deacon ; and h^e, on 
his part, was overjoyed ; for he thought within himself < that 
as they had probably been turned out of employment else- 
where, he could engage them on his own terms. 

He made them his accustomed offer ; as much rum every 
day, when work was done, as they could drink ; but they 
would not take it. Some of them broke out and told him 
that they had enough of hot things where they came from, 
without drinking damnation in the distillery. And when 
they said that, it seemed to the Deacon as if their breath 
burned blue ; but he was not certain, and could not tell 
what to make of it. Then he offered them a pittance of 
money; but they set up such a laugh, that he thought the 
roof of the building would fall in. They demanded a sum 
which the Deacon said he could not give, and would not, 
to the best set of workmen that ever lived, much less to 
such piratical looking scape-jails as they. Finally, he said, 



108 deacon giles' distillery. 

he would give half what they asked, if they would take two- 
thirds of that in Bibles. When he mentioned the word 
Bibles, they all looked towards the door, and made a step 
backwards, and the Deacon thought they trembled ; but 
whether it was with anger or delirium tremens or some- 
thing else, he could not tell. However, they winked, and 
made signs to each other, and then one of them, who seemed 
to be the head man, agreed with the Deacon, that if he 
would let them work by night instead of day, they would 
stay with him awhile, and work on his own terms. To 
this he agreed, and they immediately went to work. 

The Deacon had a fresh cargo of molasses to be worked 
up, and a great many hogsheads then in from his country 
customers, to be filled with liquor. When he went home, 
he locked up the doors, leaving the distillery to his new 
workmen. As soon as he was gone, you would have thought 
that one of the chambers of hell had been transported to 
earth, with all its inmates. The distillery glowed with fires 
that burned hotter than ever before ; and the figures of the 
demons passing to and fro, and leaping and yelling in the 
midst of their work, made it look like the entrance to the 
bottomless pit. 

Some of them sat astride the rafters, over the heads of 
the others, and amused themselves with blowing flames 
out of their mouths. The work of distilling seemed play 
to them, and they carried it on with supernatural rapidity. 
It was hot enough to have boiled the molasses in any part 
of the distillery ; but they did not seem to mind it at all. 
Some lifted the hogsheads as easily as you would raise a 
teacup, and turned their contents into the proper receptacles ; 
some scummed the boiling liquids ; some, with huge ladles, 
dipped the smoking fluid from the different vats, and raising 
it high in the air, seemed to take great delight in watching 
the fiery stream, as they spouted it back again ; some 
drafted the distilled liquor into empty casks and hogsheads ; 
some stirred the fires ; all were boisterous and horribly pro- 



deacon giles' distillery. 109 

fane, and seemed to engage in their work with such familiar 
and malignant satisfaction, that I concluded the business 
of distilling was as natural as hell, and must have originated 
there. 

I gathered from their talk that they were going to play a 
trick upon the Deacon, that should cure him of offering rum 
and Bibles to his workmen ; and I soon found out from 
their conversation and movements, what it was. They 
were going to write certain inscriptions on all his rum 
casks, that should remain invisible until they were sold by 
the Deacon, but should flame out in characters of fire as 
soon as they were broached by his retailers, or exposed for 
the use of the drunkards. 

When they had filled a few casks with liquor, one of 
them took a great coal of fire, and having quenched it in a 
mixture of rum and molasses, proceeded to write, appa- 
rently by way of experiment, upon the heads of the differ- 
ent vessels. Just as it was dawn, they left off work, and 
all vanished together. 

In the morning the Deacon was puzzled to know how 
the workmen got out of the distillery, which he found fast 
locked as he had left it. He was still more amazed to find 
that they had done more work in one night, than could 
have been accomplished, in the ordinary way, in three 
weeks. He pondered the thing not a little, and almost 
concluded that it was the work of supernatural agents. 
At any rate, they had done so much that he thought he 
could afford to attend meeting that day, as it was the 
Sabbath. Accordingly he went to church, and heard his 
minister say that God could pardon sin without an atone- 
ment, that the words hell and devils were mere figures of 
speech, and that all men would certainly be saved. He 
was much pleased, and inwardly resolved he would send 
his minister a half cask of wine ; and, as it happened to be 
communion Sabbath, he attended meeting all day. 

In the evening the men came again, and again the 



110 DEACON GILES 5 DISTILLERY. 

Deacon locked them in to themselves, and they went to 
work. They finished all his molasses, and. filled all his 
rum barrels, and kegs, and hogsheads, with liquor, and 
marked them all, as on the preceding night, with invisible 
inscriptions. Most of the titles ran thus : — 

" Consumption sold here. Inquire at Deacon Giles 1 
Distillery." 

" Convulsions and epilepsies. Inquire at Amos Giles 1 
Distillery" 

" Insanity and murder. Inquire at Deacon Giles 1 Dis- 
tillery" 

" Dropsy and rheumatism." u Putrid fever, and cholera 
in the collapse. Inquire at Amos Giles 1 Distillery. 11 

" Delirium tremens. Inquire at Deacon Giles 1 Distillery. 11 

Many of the casks had on them inscriptions like the fol- 
lowing : — 

" Distilled death and liquid damnation." " The Elixir 
of Hell for the bodies of those whose souls are coming 
there. 11 

Some of the demons had even taken sentences from the 
Scriptures, and marked the hogsheads thus : — 

"Who hath wo? Inquire at Deacon Giles 1 Distillery 11 
u Who hath redness of eyes ? Inquire at Deacon Giles 1 
Distillery. 11 

Others had written sentences like the following: — 

" A POTION FROM THE LAKE OF FIRE AND BRIMSTONE. 

Inquire at Deacon Giles 1 Distillery. 11 

All these inscriptions burned, when visible, a " still and 
awful red." One of the most terrible in its appearance 
was as follows : — 

" Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Inquire 
at Deacon Giles 1 Distillery. 11 



DEACON GILES' DISTILLERY. Ill 

In the morning the workmen vanished as before, just as 
it was dawn ; but in the dusk of the evening they came 
again, and told the Deacon it was against their principles 
to take any wages for work done between Saturday night 
and Monday morning, and as they could not stay with him 
any longer, he was welcome to what they had done. The 
Deacon was very urgent to have them remain, and offered 
to hire them for the season at any wages, but they would 
not. So he thanked them and they went away, and he 
saw them no more. 

In the course of the week most of the casks were sent 
into the country, and duly hoisted on their stoups, in con- 
spicuous situations, in the taverns and groceries, and rum- 
shops. But no sooner had the first glass been drawn from 
any of them, than the invisible inscriptions flamed out on 
the cask-head to every beholder. " CONSUMPTION 
SOLD HERE. DELIRIUM TREMENS, DAMNA- 
TION AND HELL-FIRE." The drunkards were terri- 
fied from the dram-shops ; the bar-rooms were emptied of 
their customers ; but in their place a gaping crowd filled 
every store that possessed a cask of the Deacon's devil-dis- 
tilled liquor, to wonder and be affrighted at the spectacle. 
For no art could efface the inscriptions. And even when 
the liquor was drawn into new casks, the same deadly let- 
ters broke out in blue and red flame all over the surface. 

The rumsellers, and grocers, and tavern-keepers were full 
of fury. They loaded their teams with the accursed liquor, 
and drove it back to the distillery. All around and before 
the door of the Deacon's establishment the returned casks 
were piled one upon another, and it seemed as if the in- 
scriptions burned brighter than ever. Consumption, Dam- 
nation, Death and Hell, mingled together in frightful con- 
fusion ; and in equal prominence, in every case, flamed 
out the direction, "INQUIRE AT DEACON GILES' 
DISTILLERY." One would have thought that the bare 
sight would have been enough to terrify every drunkard 



112 DEACON GILES 5 DISTILLERY. 

from his cups, and every trader from the dreadful traffic 
in ardent spirits. Indeed, it had some effect for a time, 
but it was not lasting, and the demons knew it would not 
be, when they played the trick ; for they knew the Deacon 
would continue to make rum, and that as long as he con- 
tinued to make it, there would be people to buy and drink 
it. And so it proved. 

The Deacon had to turn a vast quantity of liquor into 
the streets, and burn up the hogsheads ; and his distillery 
has smelled of brimstone ever since ; but he would not give 
up the trade. He carries it on still, and every time I see 
his advertisement, " Inquire at Amos Giles* Distillery" 
I think I see Hell and Damnation, and he, the proprietor 



DEACON JONES' BREWERY. 



Deacon Jones, from early life, had been a distiller of 
New England rum. He entered on the business when every- 
body thought it was a calling as honest as the miller's, and 
he grew rich by it. But the nature of his occupation, and 
the wealth he was gaining, sadly seared his conscience. 
Of seven promising sons, three had died drunkards, two 
were lost at sea, in a vessel whose cargo was rum from the 
Deacon's own distillery, and two were living at home, idle 
and dissipated. Yet it never occurred to the father that 
he himself had been the cause of all this misery to his own 
family ; he was even wont to converse with great resigna- 
tion on the subject of his trials, declaring that he found 
comfort in the passage that reads that "whom the Lord 
loveth he chasteneth, and scour geth every son whom he re- 
ceiveth" His business was very extensive, and he plied 
the trade of death with unremitting assiduity. 

When the Temperance Reformation commenced, Deacon 
Jones took ground against it. He declared it was a great 
piece of fanaticism. He was once heard to say, that if the 
bones of his ancestors could rattle in their graves, it would 
be to hear the business of distilling denounced as product- 
ive of death to men's bodies and damnation to their souls. 
The progress of the reformation was so rapid, that at 
length he began to see that it must, in the end, greatly 
injure his business, and curtail his profits. Moreover, he 
did not feel easy on the score of conscience, and when the 
members of the Church proceeded to excommunicate a dram- 



114 DEACON JONES' BREWERY. 

seller, who kept his grog-shop open on the Sabbath, and 
had been in the habit of procuring all of his supplies at 
the Deacon's distillery, he trembled lest his brethren should 
take it into their heads that the business of distilling was 
the foundation of the whole evil. It was said that he was 
much disturbed by an article in the newspaper, which 
came strongly under his notice, descriptive of the immor- 
ality of the business of the distiller, and ending with these 
words : " I think I see hell and damnation, and he the 
proprietor" For a long time the deacon could not enter 

"hi* 

his distillery, without thinking of those dreadful woros ; he 
considered them so profane, that he thought the article 
ought to be presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury. 

At length the perplexities of conscience, and the fears of 
self-interest, drove him to think seriously of quitting the 
business. One afternoon, as he was sitting at home, ab- 
sorbed in thought, a loud, impetuous knock at the door of 
the apartment startled him, and in walked one of the most 
singular personages he remembered ever to have seen. It 
was a man apparently about fifty years of age, very short 
of stature and sturdy in bulk, with a countenance that 
indicated uncommon shrewdness, and an eye of preter- 
natural brilliancy and power. Yet his features were ex- 
tremely irregular, and so evidently marked with strong but 
compressed passion, as to put one in mind of the crater of 
a hushed volcano ; in truth, his face, in some positions, 
almost wore the aspect of a fiend escaped from the infernal 
regions. With all this, he could assume, if he chose, a 
strange, incongruous appearance of humor; his countenance 
had that expression when he entered the room where the 
deacon was meditating. 

He had on a coat of blue broadcloth, of the fashion of 
Queen Anne's age, a white satin waistcoat with enormous 
(laps, covered with figures of dancing satyrs wrought in 
crimson silk, and pantaloons of red velvet, over which was 
drawn a pair of white-topped boots, that reached nearly to 



DEACON JONES' BREWERY. 115 

his knees, with feet of extraordinary magnitude. On his 
head was a three-cornered adjutant's hat, which he raised 
with an easy bow as he entered. His salutation to the 
deacon was kindly expressed, though in a very deep, start- 
ling voice, that seemed as if it came almost from the centre 
of the earth. He told the Deacon he was happy to see 
him, and that knowing he was somewhat troubled in mind, 
he had called to help him out of his perplexities. 

The Deacon looked uneasy at this address, and told 
his visitor that he did not remember ever to have seen him. 
Upon that the man laughed very extravagantly, and con- 
fessed it was not strange that he did not recognize him : 
14 but no matter for that," said he, " I think I can certainly 
assure you that I am without doubt the best friend you 
have in the world." 

The Deacon did not care to contradict him, especially as 
his face just then looked strangely malignant ; so he pro- 
ceeded to draw the Deacon into a long conversation, in 
which the man in blue and velvet seemed an adept in the 
mystery of distilling, and a friend to the art. The Deacon 
told him all his trouble in regard to the Temperance Refor- 
mation. "Not," said he, "that I dislike the thing itself, 
in the abstract. I am as firm a temperance man as any 
one. But really they do adopt such hot-headed, fanatical 
measures, and are carrying the thing to such an extreme, 
that it is enough to put one out of all patience. It is not 
strange that even good people should be driven to oppose 
the reformation in mere self-defence. I am for temperance 
under the broad banner of the law ; and the law protects 
the business of distilling as much as it does any business ; 
in my view the making of rum is just as honest a calling 
as the making of gunpowder." 

The man in blue acquiesced, and told the Deacon he 
heartily hated these Anti Societies for the purpose of 
putting down particular sins, and he said he thought a 
great deal more injury was done by intemperate writing 



116 DEACON JONES 5 BREWERY. 

than by intemperate drinking. Nevertheless he told him 
that he thought a brewery would be quite as profitable as 
a distillery, and that the business, moreover, would work 
in very well, just then, with the public mind, on the score 
of temperance. He proposed a visit to the deacon's dis- 
tillery, and told him he thought between them they could 
contrive a new and convenient disposure of the whole 
establishment. 

Accordingly, with this interesting conversation, they pro- 
ceeded to the distillery, and after examining the premises, 
sat down in the Deacon's counting-room, in which, it may 
be remarked, he kept a copy of Bangs on Distillation, but 
no Bibles. Here again they had a long conversation, after 
which the man in blue told the Deacon that if he would 
give ever to him the care of the distillery for that night, 
he thought he could make it a good temperance specula- 
tion, and arrange matters perfectly to his mind. By this 
time the man seemed to have acquired a strange power 
over the Deacon, and he agreed to all his propositions 
without much delay. So the workmen retired to their 
homes at sundown, and the Deacon to his, leaving the 
keys of the distillery and counting-room in his velvet 
friend's possession. 

That night there was a violent thunder-storm, and the 
Deacon slept but little. Had he known the scenes that 
were transacting in his distillery, he would not have slept 
at all. The stageman who drove the mail passed the 
distillery, which was situated on the main road, about 
midnight, and afterwards declared, that through the win- 
dows of the distillery, which he thought burned blue, he 
could see a crowd of wild and savage-looking creatures 
hurrying to and fro, and though it was thundering at a 
fearful rate, he coald hear the strangest supernatural 
voices, amidst all the fury of the storm. This was prob- 
ably not merely the man's excited imagination ; for, after 
the Deacon's departure, as night drew on, the distillery 



DEACON JONES* BREWERY. 117 

was filled with demoniacal-looking beings, who seemed ripe 
even for a midnight murder, and all under the control of 
the strange man left by the Deacon in the counting-room. 
It was soon easy to perceive by their movements what 
was their object. With supernatural strength and dex- 
terity they proceeded to disorganize the whole internal 
paraphernalia of the Deacon's establishment. They tore 
up and emptied all his vats, but carefully deposited the 
dregs and filth of distillation, wherever they found it, 
in a large muddy cistern, which they discovered conven- 
iently disposed at one end of the distillery. They took in 
pieces the whole machinery of distillation, and by a wonder- 
ful metamorphosis, they so re-modelled its parts and refitted 
the vats, as to make them admirably suited to the processes 
of malting and brewing. The worm of the still they un- 
coiled, but sheathed the bottom of the new vats with the 
lead that came out of it. 

Some of them I observed were busy in bringing in and 
piling up huge bags of barley ; others in constructing the 
furnaces and chambers where the malt was to be dried ; 
others in filling the cistern, into which the dregs of the vats 
had been poured, with dirty water dipped from a stagnant 
pond, covered with green slime and infested with crawling 
reptiles, hard by the distillery. They set the barley for 
malt, and so peculiar were the qualities of the malting mix- 
ture in the cistern, and so admirable the skill with which 
they had prepared the furnace and floors for kiln-drying, 
that a process was accomplished in less than an hour, which 
ordinarily demanded some days for its completion. The 
task of mashing was an easy one, and the w r ort was drawn 
off and boiled down, and the coolers filled, with surprising 
celerity ; and to crown all, they set the liquor for fermenta- 
tion in a tun of prodigious dimensions, which one party had 
been engaged in constructing, while the others were busied 
in the process of malting, mashing, boiling, and cooling. 

In the midst of all this astounding bustle, the man in 



118 beacon Jones' brewery. 

the counting-room was neither idle, nor satisfied with the 
mere superintendence of his energetic workmen. He 
stripped off his broadcloth and velvet, disencumbered him- 
self of his huge boots, and appeared the most gaunt, active, 
and demoniacal among the whole crew. They leaped, and 
grinned, and jibbered, and swore, in so terrific a manner, 
that it seemed as if the thunder, which was breaking in 
such tremendous artillery across the heavens, would have 
been charged to peal in among them, for their horrible pro- 
faneness. 

But the most astonishing scene took place while they 
boiled down the liquor. They gathered in a double circle, 
and danced to music as infernal as the rhymes they chanted 
were malignant, amidst the bickering flames and smoke of 
the furnace, round about the huge copper cauldron of boil- 
ing liquid, into which each of them, from moment to mo- 
ment, adapting the action to the words they sung, threw 
such ingredients as they had provided for the occasion. I 
shall scarcely be credited, while I relate what poisonous and 
nauseous drugs they cast into the agitated mixture. Opium, 
henbane, cocculus indicus, nux vomica, grains of paradise, 
and Bohemian rosemary ; aloes, gentian, quassia, wormwood, 
and treacle ; capsicum, cassia-buds, isinglass, cods-sounds, 
and oil of vitriol, were dashed in turn amidst the foaming 
mass of materials, which they stirred and tasted, scalding 
hot as it was, with a ferocious exulting delight that seemed 
to increase in proportion as the quality of its properties 
grew more pernicious. They could not but remind me of 
Shakspeare's witches on the blasted heath of midnight, when 
the charm was brewing for Duncan's murder. Indeed the 
song they sung, as they leaped about the cauldron, and threw 
in their infernal mixtures, was so similar to that of those 
" secret, black, and midnight hags," when they were going 
to do " the deed without a name," that I think the chorus, 
in which they all joined, must have been gathered from some 
copy of the beldams' accursed incantations. They repeated 



BREWERY. 119 

something very like the following stanzas, only more hor- 
rible : — 

1st Demon. 

Round about the cauldron go, 

In the poisoned entrails throw : 

Drugs, that in the coldest veins, 

Shoot incessant fiery pains ; 

Herbs, that, brought from hell's black door, 

Do its business slow and sure. 

All in Chorus. 

Double, double, toil and trouble ; 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

Several Demons successively, 1st, 2d, 3d, fyc. 

This shall scorch and sear the brain, 
This shall mad the heart with pain, 
This shall bloat the flesh with fire, 
This eternal thirst inspire, 
This shall savage lust inflame, 
This shall steel the soul to shame, 
This make all mankind contend 
'Tis their generous social friend. 

All in C/wrus. 

Double, double, toil and trouble, 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

2d Demon. 

This shall brutalize the mind, 

And to the corporal frame shall bind 

Fell disease ef every kind ; 

Dropsies, agues, fierce catarrhs, 

Pestilential inward wars, 

Fevers, gouts, convulsive starts, 

Racking spasms in vital parts. 

And men shall call the liquor good, 

The more with death it thicks the blood. 

All in Chorus. 

Double, double, toil and trouble, 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

All the Demons in Full Chorus. 

Mortal ! yours the damning sin ; 
Drink the maddening mixture in. 



120 DEACON JONES 5 BREWERY. 

It shall beat with fierce control. 
All the pulses of the soul. 
Sweet the poison, love it well, 
As the common path to hell. 
Let the charm of powerful trouble. 
Like a hell-broth boil, and bubble. 

Double, double, toil and trouble, 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

They sung these devilish curses with dreadfully malig- 
nant satisfaction ; and when all the processes in the prepa- 
ration of the liquor were finished, with equal delight they 
proceeded to draft it in immense quantities into hogsheads 
and casks of every dimension. Into every vessel, as they 
filled it, they put a certain quantity of potash, lime, salt, 
and sulphuric acid, and then drove in the bung, and wrote 
upon the cask head, according as it suited their fancy. 
Some of the inscriptions were as follows : — 

"BEST LONDON PORTER, FROM DEACON JONES' BREWERY." 

" PALE ALE, OF THE PUREST MATERIALS." 

"TEMPERANCE BEER FROM DEACON JONES' BREWERY." 

"MILD AMERICAN PORTER, FOR FAMILY USE." 
"BEST ALBANY ALE, FROM DEACON JONES' BREWERY." 

They also filled an immense multitude of bottles from 
the fermenting tun, and packed them very neatly in strong 
square baskets, which they labelled in shining letters, in 
these words : — 

" RESTORATIVE FOR WEAK CONSTITUTIONS.— DEACON JONES' 
BEST BOTTLED PORTER." 

A very queer label, as I thought, was used by some, 
and that was — 

"PALE ALE FOR THE NURSERY." 

This work was finished just as it grew towards dawn, 
and having converted the Deacon's old distillery into an 
extensive brewery, they all vanished from the building 
before light, in the same unaccountable manner in which 
they came into it. 



DEACON JONES' BREWERY. 121 

In the morning the deacon walked out towards the 
establishment, not a little disturbed in his thoughts, as to 
what might have been going on over night. He found the 
outside of his distillery not very much altered, though a 
number of new windows were observable, surmounted with 
an out-jutting piece of plank like a penthouse, and covered 
with coarse blinds, through which the steam from the 
brewery was pouring in volumes. He thought likewise 
that the brick walls looked larger and longer than ever 
before, and more saturated with alcoholic perspiration, as 
though, indeed, they might have taken a midnight sweat. 
He found the man in blue and velvet walking about in the 
clear morning air, and surveying the scene apparently with 
peculiar satisfaction. 

Without saying a word the man took the Deacon by the 
arm, and led him into the building, and after pointing out 
all the extensive transformations and additions, which had 
been accomplished during the night's work, he threw open 
the doors of an immense store-room, where the workmen 
had filled the casks of liquor for the Deacon, after the mid- 
night brewing. " Now, Deacon," said the man, with a 
singularly expressive grin, " I think I have removed all 
your perplexities, and you may pursue your business on 
temperance grounds. Meantime we will be just as good 
friends as ever ; for I do assure you, that as long as you 
manage this brewery as I have begun it, you will be 
doing my work almost as effectually as you were while 
carrying on the distillery." With that he politely lifted 
his three-cornered hat, passed gravely out of the building, 
and the Deacon saw him no more. 

The Deacon was greatly puzzled. He knew not what to 
think of his strange companion, and for a time he hardly 
knew whether to be glad or sorry for the acquisition of 
wealth which he saw before him. Especially was he per- 
plexed by the language of the man, when he said, " You 
will be doing my work." He could not tell what to make 

6 



122 DEACON JONES* BREWERY. 

of it, and it troubled him not a little. However, he soon 
became absorbed in the study of the new machinery, and 
began to be particularly pleased with the prodigious size of 
the tun for fermentation, and the vastness of the well-filled 
store room. He thought he could almost swim a revenue 
cutter in the one, and pile more than a thousand hogsheads 
in the other. 

In the course of the day he got busily engaged in his 
brewery, and the liquor was sent into all parts of the 
country ; and wherever it came, and whoever tasted it, it 
was pronounced the most delicious of all intoxicating mix- 
tures. Confirmed drunkards smacked their lips, and de- 
clared that if they could only live upon such liquor as that, 
they would never touch another drop of New England rum 
in the world. The Deacon was very much pleased, and 
some time afterwards he was heard to say, in the midst of 
a company of bloated beer-drinkers, that Mr. E. C. Delavan, 
of Albany, would do more to injure the temperance refor- 
mation, by his ill-judged crusades against wine and beer, 
than he had ever done to forward it by all his energetic 
efforts against rum and brandy. The besotted crew, one and 
all, applauded this speech of the Deacon, declaring that he 
had expressed their opinion precisely ; for they had long 
thought that the temperance cause was greatly suffering 
from the imprudence and misguided zeal of its professed 
friends. 

The Deacon continues his brewery on so great a scale 
that even his devil-built fermentation- tun is hardly large 
enough to supply the demands of his customers. It is said 
that he manufactures the best " Copenhagen Porter" in 
the country ; but every time I see his advertisement, 
" Inquire at Deacon Jones' Brewery," I hear again the 
midnight curses of the demons, and think of the dreadful 
meaning of their leader's language to the Deacon, "You 

WILL BE DOING MY WORK." 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 

A WARNING TO RUM-SELLING GROCERS. 



t: A thing betwixt a story and a dream, — 
It had more truth than fact, more fact than fiction." 



John Stubbs was a grocer, wicked, but well to do in the 
world. He was a man greedy of gain, and of a savage 
disposition. He used to beat a poor little orphan boy in his 
possession as if it were a pastime, until the child suddenly 
disappeared, when Stubbs asserted that he had gone to sea, 
but from that hour the man's brow grew blacker. Some 
suspected foul play, but as there could be no legal investi- 
gation, the thing passed off. 

John Stubbs sold rum ; indeed, the greater part of his 
profits were made in that way, and as he used to sell on 
the Sabbath, he often made more money that day than any 
other day in the week. Yet you never seemed to notice 
the shop open of a Sunday ; the shutters were all closed, 
and the doors were closed, there being a nook of an en- 
trance hard by, almost out of sight, where the rum-besotted 
wretches of the neighborhood could glide in and out with- 
out disturbance. Excluding the sunlight from his dominions, 
John Stubbs went about among his casks on Sunday with 
a lamp at noonday. On such occasions Satan might have 
taken him for one of his own demons, and the darkened 
store, with its half-revealed paraphernalia of drunkenness, 
for one of the sootiest chambers in the bottomless pit. 

John Stubbs did not merely sell rum — he drank it. 



124 THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 

What he drank did not intoxicate him ; he was too fond of 
money for that ; but it burned in him, and bloated him, 
and made him angry as fire. A poor woman came into 
the shop one day, and besought him to sell no more rum to 
her husband, for it starved the children and made the house 
a hell beforehand. " That's nothing to me," said the man ; 
" he don't get drunk on my premises. Drink rum your- 
self, and then you'll agree." A good man in the neighbor- 
hood remonstrated with him, and another brought him the 
temperance pledge. It angered him prodigiously. " He 
was not going to have his liberty curtailed by your hypo- 
critical temperance societies and your psalm-singing dea- 
cons, not he ! He would sell rum, and drink it if he chose, 
though all the devils in hell were burning in every drop of 
it." His shop was on a corner and had a parcel of chalk 
signs, intermingled with herring boxes and potato barrels, 
ranged on the outside. 

John Stubbs sold rum under cover of Law, and that 
served as a great plaster to his conscience if ever it needed 
one. It was a lawful calling, and with many persons 
besides rum-sellers what is lawful is right and just, and as a 
matter of course. There was no fifteen gallon law, nor 
virtue enough in the community to sustain it ; and though 
there was a law against selling liquor on the Sabbath, 
John Stubbs felt pretty sure, inasmuch as many were 
known to violate it, and yet no notice was taken of the 
violation, that he would not be disturbed on that account. 
Besides, I am not sure but the owner of the building, and 
John Stubbs's landlord, was a member of a church ; and 
if church-members would let their houses to rum-sellers to 
sell liquor on the Sabbath, it was hardly to be expected 
that the police would interfere. In fact, John Stubbs felt 
much quieted in his mind, if conscience ever did reproach 
him, by considering that his landlord was a professor of 
religion, and certainly, would not sanction any occupation 
that was very sinful. Besides, John Stubbs had argued, at 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 125 

a time when he really did debate the question, that if he 
did not sell liquor others would, so that nothing would be 
gained to anybody by his giving up the traffic ; on the con- 
trary, somebody would be sure to set up a rum-grocery at 
his side, and perhaps do more mischief than he ; so that on 
the whole it was a gain to the community if he kept up 
the business. Let it not be thought that ardent spirits was 
the only kind of strong drink sold upon John Stubbs's 
premises ; there was a good array of wine-casks, and porter- 
casks, and strong beer and cider. 

Now it happened that John Stubbs manufactured his 
own wine ; so that those customers of his who restricted 
themselves to the use of that kind of liquor, were by far the 
most profitable to him, inasmuch as they received ardent 
spirit under a different name, at a far higher price than the 
poor creatures paid for it who drank it under the shape of 
rum. John Stubbs's enmity against the temperance society 
was much abated by that circumstance. 

Things went on in this way a long time, and the grocer 
made a great deal of money ; but all the while he drank 
rum himself; and though he had an iron constitution, and 
could bear a great deal, those who observed him thought it 
could not last. Many grocers sell rum who do not drink 
it ; but let no rum-selling grocer congratulate himself on 
this point, for he is heaping together wealth against the 
last day, and the time is coming when the rust of all his 
money gotten in this dreadful traffic will eat into his soul 
like a fire, ten thousand times worse than that which now 
began to burn in the veins of John Stubbs. There is some 
difference whether a man ruins his soul by drinking or by 
making others drink ; but of two grocers who sell rum, 
one of whom also drinks, but the other is sober, I doubt if 
the last will have any more tolerable place in hell than the 
first. Indeed, on some accounts, it is more wicked for a 
sober man to sell rum than a drinking one. For a sober 
man perfectly well knows what it is that he is doing ; he 



126 THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 

does it with his eyes open, and with a cool calculation for 
gain ; knowing all the while that ninety-nine hundredths 
of the liquor he sells goes to make drunkards. 

And whereas, some grocers say that though they do 
indeed sell rum to be carried away, yet they do not allow 
any to be drunk on the premises, and do not sell to drunk- 
ards, yet on some accounts this is still worse ; for they 
are just preparing men for utter ruin, before they are gone 
entirely. They are pushing them on from that stage 
where they might have been reclaimed, to that position 
where there will no longer be any hope of reclaiming them. 
They are making men drunkards by selling, which is cer- 
tainly as bad as to sell after the drunkards are made. 
Alas ! how little do they think of that terrible woe from 
God, so definite, so explicit, Woe unto him that giveth 
his neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and 
makest him drunken. 

One bitter cold winter's night, the woman I have spoken 
of above, whose child had been smitten with a sore sick- 
ness, even unto death, ventured into the grocery to find 
her husband. She had no money even to buy medicine for 
her poor sick boy ; her last stick of wood was burning in 
the cold chimney ; and she was as wretched a woman as 
could well be. She had come in the faint hope of getting 
some of her husband's day's wages before they had all 
gone to pay up his score for drink ; but in vain ; for John 
Stubbs told her he did not believe her child was sick, and 
swore that her husband should not stir a step till he had 
paid up all ; and the miserable man, finding Stubbs' shop 
a warm place, and his liquor warmer, refused himself to 
move. So the poor wife returned back, heart-broken, to 
the place where her child lay dying. She must have 
perished in her misery had it not been for the kindness of 
a neighbor, for that night, which was Friday, the child 
died. 

Saturday evening, after laying out her boy's corpse as 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 127 

decently as she could, she summoned courage once more to 
visit the grocery ; for the child must be buried the next 
day, and as yet there was not even a coffin. In the height 
of her grief she could not help telling John Stubbs, that if 
it had not been for him her child had been alive and well 
that moment. Hearing this, the grocer started from 
among his casks behind the counter, and, with a dreadful 
face, swore that if ever he had anything to do with that or 
any other child's death, all the devils in hell might burn 
him and his shop together. This phrase, all the devils in 
hell, was a favorite oath with John Stubbs, for the man 
was awfully profane, and so in general were those who 
frequented his shop, and drank his liquor. Something had 
now roused the devil within him very fearfully ; for, laying 
hold of the woman's arm, he pushed her violently out into 
the street, and cursed the time he had ever seen either her 
or her husband. Well nigh dead with grief, she tottered 
home, and threw herself on the body of her dead child. 
There her brute of a husband found her, only to tell her 
that if her friends would not help her to a coffin and bury 
the child, it must lay there all winter, for he had no money 
to do it. In God's mercy friends were found ; and Sabbath 
day, while John Stubbs was selling rum by lamp-light, 
that little boy was put in the grave beneath the cold snow, 
and the clods of frozen ground sounded to the mother's 
ears like pieces of sharp iron, as they fell upon the coffin. 

That same night John Stubbs' retribution commenced. 
By what instrumentality it was effected, I will not under- 
take to determine ; but even the drunkards dimly noted a 
fearful connection between his oaths the night preceding, 
and the things that happened. Late in the evening, just 
as, with trembling hand, for John Stubbs' hand had begun 
at length to tremble, he was drawing a glass of liquor for 
a parting customer, his eyes were almost started from their 
sockets by the sight of a grinning, snaky figure, in flames, 
right before him. Presently the air began to be fall of 



128 THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 

them, and each one threw, direct at John Stubbs, balls of 
fire, with sharp curling snakes protruding out of them. 
Then one clutched him by the hair, then they all retreated 
to the wall, and began crawling along and hissing in such 
horrible shapes, that Stubbs cried out that he was in hell, 
and the fiends were burning him. So it continued for near 
an hour, till every inmate of the shop ran out of it in 
terror at his shrieks and language. Apparently he recov- 
ered, for he was seen shortly by the watch putting iip a 
bar outside one of the windows, after which he entered, 
closed his door, and did not again open it. 

About two o'clock the watchmen were alarmed by the 
sudden appearance of a bright light streaming through 
every crevice into the street, and on bursting open the door 
the shop was all of a fierce blaze, and there lay, blackened 
and crisped like a cinder, but on the floor, where the fire 
was not blazing, though the air itself seemed all flame, the 
body of John Stubbs. From the position and appearance 
of the body, and the horrible stench that with the flames 
poured out of the shop, there was no doubt that Stubbs 
had somehow or other inadvertently brought the flame of 
the lamp in contact with his breath, and had been con- 
sumed, even before the shop itself got on fire, by spon- 
taneous combustion. Be that as it may, the flames 
increased so furiously, by the casks of liquor bursting one 
after another, and running in so many streams of fire all 
over the shop, that, before assistance could be got, it was 
no longer possible to reach the body ; and as to putting out 
the flames, the water of the engines was of no more use 
than if it had been oil. Blue and red torrents of fire shot 
up into the sky, and some averred that they saw, as plain 
as ever they beheld anything in their life, the body of John 
Stubbs held between two demons in the vast flickering 
blaze, and a boy piercing his heart with a spear of red hot 
iron. Whether this was mere imagination or not, perhaps 
it was very natural to think so ; and certainly all the 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN STUBBS. 129 

figures of torture that the spouting and roaring flames 
could form, would be nothing to the torment of a damned 
soul in hell, that in this world, as it is to be feared is the 
case witli all rum-selling grocers, was engaged in the busi- 
ness of preparing the bodies and souls of men for ever- 
lasting damnation. It is fearful even to use the words, 
but if so, what shall be said of the business? 

6* 



PART SECOID. 



DESCRIPTIVE AND MEDITATIVE. 



What time the daisy decks the green. 

Thy certain voice we hear : 
Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 

Or mark the rolling year? 
I hear thee babbling to the vale, 

Of sunshine and of flowers, 
But unto me thou bring' st a tale 

Of visionary hours. 



NOTES OF NATURE AT SARATOGA. 



This is a morning of such exquisite brightness and beauty 
as Adam and Eve might have beheld in Paradise before 
their fall. Some things are still left in this world, some 
aspects of nature, that seem liker heaven than earth, and 
such that the sons of God might shout for joy to behold 
them, as when this fair creation rose out of chaos. This 
morning is such a scene. The low, lingering clouds, and 
the dead, close, dog-day weather, are swept off by the north- 
west wind, and everything is as bright, fresh and vivid, as 
if the finger of God had just touched the world anew. How 
brilliant the atmosphere ! It reminds us of the saying in 
Job ; " fair weather cometh out of the North; with God is 
terrible majesty. 5 ' The connection between these two 
phrases is singular, but in some seasons and changes of the 
atmosphere, even in our climate, it is singularly impressive. 
There is something in such a morning as this, that gives 
the mind a vivid image of the radiant glory of God in his 
holiness, his purity, his majesty. 

And how sweet, how full of enjoyment, is a walk in the 
wild woods on such a morning ! The trees seem to enjoy 
it as much as we. How clearly defined is everything in 
the bright, clear air. And the shadows themselves, with 
what distinct outlines they fall upon the green grass ! 
Those tall pines seem to have grown higher towards heaven, 
and the clusters of cones upon their topmost branches, like 
the young fruit of some species of palms, are distinctly vis- 
ible. So is every separate brush and spire of the foliage, 



134 NOTES OF NATURE AT SARATOGA. 

with the broad leaves of the oak, glossy and lustrous in the 
sunshine, as if it had just been raining ; and the delicate 
leaf of the maple, and the pointed leaf and round green nut 
of the hickory, and the silvery network of the spruce, with 
the sun shining through it, and the gray embossed berries 
or buds on the spreading hemlock ; — you can see them all ; 
it seems as if the light penetrated them, and as if they 
were cut out from the solid atmosphere. There are several 
pines in the grove near Congress Spring, which are truly 
magnificent ; everybody remembers them, and how they 
tower, like giant sentinels, over the whole wood. They 
seem the relics of the primeval forest, and remind one of 
those tallest pines upon Norwegian hills, of which Milton 
speaks as but a wand, in describing the spear of the fallen 
Archangel. What majestic trees they are ! And there is 
a most picturesque beauty in those hemlocks also, notwith- 
standing the angular obstinacy with which they push out 
their snag-like branches into the air. They are trees, 
which Ruysdael would have delighted to copy. The fir 
trees are not so remarkable, but still most beautiful. And 
what a noble, various forest may be constituted out of our 
most common native trees ; the oak, the pine, the fir, the 
maple, the elm, the walnut, the hemlock, the cedar, the 
birch, and the beech, sometimes all growing together, or 
within a very little distance, and affording at all seasons a 
wonderful variety of verdure ; but in autumn, when the 
frost begins its ministry, making such a gorgeous mixture 
of colors, as no art can imitate, nor any painter describe. 

If there is anything in nature to be grateful for, it is such 
a morning as this. The sunshine in the atmosphere is like 
the light upon the soul, when " God shines into it, to give 
the light of the knowledge of his glory, in the face of Jesus 
Christ.'' The air is such, 

" As to the heart inspires 
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive 
All sadness but despair." 



NOTES OF NATURE AT SARATOGA. 135 

In such a morning in the soul and in all nature, it seems 
as if you could see far out into the eternal world ; as if the 
spiritual world and the natural world were commingling ; 
or as if the latter were but an illuminated veil, through 
which mortals may be able to see and to bear the glory of 
the former. One such calm, bright morning, is able to 
make up for a whole year of toil, dust, and noise in Broad- 
way. Perhaps indeed a residence in the great city pre- 
pares the mind and heart to enjoy with a keener relish, a 
more sensitive, intelligent perception, the beauty and the 
meaning of rural sights and sounds, when a man does get 
amongst them. But no ! a man must dwell much with 
nature to read her lessons aright, or he must have been 
much with nature in the wild woods in early years, to keep 
the forms and habitudes of the city from crusting over his 
interior spiritual perceptions of nature, as with a coat of 
ice. " I thank God," a man should say, as he grows into 
life, " for every impulse which the grass, the trees, the 
flowers, the running brooks, the clouds, awake within me. 
I thank him that he does not suffer to die away from my 
relish and admiration the rising and setting glories with 
which, morning and evening, he fills the world. I thank 
him, above all, that if, as sense grows blunted, and decays 
by age, or by reason of nervous derangement, ceases to 
represent truly the forms of nature, the freshness and beauty 
of this visible world are veiled from me, there is still no 
decay, but an ever-during increase, in the power of faith, 
so that the world to come does but shine brighter, as the 
world that now is fades away. Though our outward man 
perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. I 
thank God that the light of this world, beautiful though it 
be, is but a symbol of that radiance, unspeakable and full 
of glory, which his Spirit diffuses through the soul." 

But ah, how many walk in the light of this world, and 
enjoy it, whose condemnation it is, that though a greater 
light than that of nature has come into the world, they 



136 NOTES OF NATURE AT SARATOGA. 

heed it not, but hate it ! The light of this world, which 
should only lead to the greater light, as but an emanation 
from it, they use instead of it. And thus by the light they 
pass into darkness. This is the history of our fallen world, 
under the light of nature, as detailed by the Apostle in the 
first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. 

Pursued aright, how various, how delightful, how solemn, 
how instructive is the study of nature ! It is the study of 
the Divine wisdom and goodness, in Creation and Provi- 
dence. Those writers whose researches and productions 
assist the Christian in this study, and direct the mind ol 
the observer to God, confer a great blessing on society ; 
while those philosophers, so-called, who put nature as a 
veil or wall before God, are but using their knowledge of 
his works to make infidels. 

" Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste 
His works. Admitted once to his embrace 
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before. 
Thine eye shalt be instructed, and thine heart. 
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight, 
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought." 

The steps are plain, from nature to the Author of na- 
ture and to his natural government ; from his natural to 
his providential, and thence to his moral government in this 
world ; thence to his eternal government. The light of 
nature grows as w r e pursue it, till it meets that of revelation 
and is absorbed in it, and both carry us by Faith into un- 
clouded, everlasting day. 



NATURE IN THE BERKSHIRE MOUNTAINS. 



There are few places more beautiful than Williamstown. 
What a noble range of dark, verdant mountains, filling the 
horizon, rising in majestic amphitheatres on all sides ! 
How deep and rich the hue of the foliage, how varied and 
soul-like the aspect of all nature ! The green mountain 
slopes, with forest glades and broad pasturages, mingled 
w T ith soft meadows, dotted with clumps of trees, surround 
the village, and form a scene varying in beauty with every 
hour in the day, and every change in the sunlight. And 
what a change does the sunlight make ! Take a day like 
this, of clouds somewhat heavy, and threatening rain, with 
some sprinklings of it at intervals, and you may ride about, 
and think the scenery beautiful, even in such a leaden, 
misty atmosphere. But if, as to day, the sun comes out 
at evening, if the clouds are swept from the sky, and a clear 
sunset pours its golden light over the mountains, and bathes 
the meadows, the trees and the village, it seems a new cre- 
ation. You should be upon the hills to witness the break- 
ing of this sunset from west to east, how its glory travels 
down into the valley, and up the richly wooded mountains, 
driving away the mists, or setting them on fire among the 
foliage. 

What a superb position is this for a College ! I cannot 
but think that familiarity with such scenery, the constant 
beholding of the grand forms and rich hues of such moun- 
tain ranges, exerts a silent, ceaseless influence in building 
up the character, even though the soul seem unconscious 



138 NATURE IN THE BERKSHIRE MOUNTAINS. 

of it. No place is more favorable for witnessing the pro- 
cesses of nature, and the changes of the seasons. The 
gorgeousness of the forests in Autumn, when the frost, that 
magic painter of the foliage, begins to change their hues, 
passes all description. The freaks which the frost plays 
upon the mountain tops, before it gets down into the val- 
ley, are beautiful. Sometimes you rise in the morning and 
see the summits of the mountain ranges all around the 
horizon tipped with white frost, a girdle of glittering rime, 
in contrast with the many-colored foliage, the line between 
the frost and the verdure being perfectly distinct. The 
mountain called Graylock, receives its appellation partly 
from this phenomenon, it being the highest peak in this 
range, and receiving the Autumnal baptism of frost some- 
what earlier than any other portion of the mountains. Thus 
it has upon its forehoad a gray lock, like that upon the 
head of Time ; and since the clouds rest upon its summit 
often when they do not descend upon any lower portion of 
the hills, it keeps this gray lock, between the action of the 
frost and the mist, almost the year round. You cannot 
see Gray lock from the village of Williamstown, it being 
hidden in the Hopper, by a lower interposing range of the 
Saddleback. The Hopper is the name given to the infold- 
ing of the mountains, where they come together in shape 
like the receptacle or mouth through which the meal pours 
from the millstones, when corn is grinding ; an appellation 
about as appropriate as notch to a vast mountain chasm, 
and homelier still. It must be confessed that there is a 
great resemblance between this formation of the mountains, 
and that part of a grist-mill termed the hopper. Doubt- 
less, it was the village miller who first applied the name. 
Out of this hopper rises the majestic, verdant form of Gray- 
lock, about 3500 feet above the level of the sea. 

The rides and drives in all this region are delightful. 
New and picturesque spots of calm and sometimes romantic 
beauty are breaking upon you, and there is an almost in- 



NATURE IN THE BERKSHIRE MOUNTAINS. 139 

finite variety in your circuit of views. From the mountain 
ranges on every side, at a very easy access from the village? 
you command a vast, rich and varied prospect. Perhaps 
the finest view of the valley and the village is from an easy 
ascent about a quarter of a mile from the Mansion Hotel, 
especially if you are there of a clear sunset. Or if you 
happen to be upon the College Observatory at the same 
hour, nothing can exceed the loveliness with which the rich 
evening light falls aslant upon the meadows and the trees, 
and almost sets on fire the mountain masses of verdure. 
Then the constantly deepening and changing shades upon 
mountain and valley, how beautiful ! The veiling clouds 
and the breaking sunlight chase each other. Evening, 
morning and noon, have their sets and peculiarities of light 
and shadow ; the morning with its freshness, the noon with 
its broad and still solemnity, the evening with its golden 
colors deepening into the twilight. All seasons here are 
times for meditation, times when nature gives you abun- 
dant food for thought, and materials for thanksgiving and 
prayer. 

I say again, how beautiful, how admirable is such a 
place, as the situation for a College. The young student 
is to be envied, who, with a keen and sensitive perception 
of the beauties of nature, has his lot cast here for the four 
years of his college education. It ought to make him a 
better and a wiser man all his life-time, to have the grand 
forms of these mountains before him at such a period of 
his existence. And then this secluded spot is so shut out 
from the dangers, the temptations, the examples, of large 
towns and cities ; it is much to be praised on this account. 

I found some old friends here, ruralizing among the 
mountains, and others who have become natives of Wil- 
liamstown since I visited this region before. One of them, 
whose family was absent for a season, met me with a rue- 
ful countenance and the following couplet, which was all 



140 NATURE IN THE BERKSHIRE MOUNTAINS. 

he recollected of a whole antique poem, but which had got 
full possession of his mind : 

" Home is a solitary place for one 
Who loves his wife, and finds her gone." 

I should like to have seen the whole poem. This part 
of it will never be forgotten till the mountains crumble. 

There is a poetic inspiration in the scenery, as the fol- 
lowing lines will prove, given to me by a friend hitherto 
more addicted to logic and metaphysics than poetry, but 
who cannot resist the quickening influences of nature and 
of early recollections. The lines were the result of a walk 
by the meadow, and not a mere philosophic meditation in 
the closet. A soft, quiet meadow, and a rippling trout 
stream, with the branches of the willows dipping into it, 
might have set old Izaak Walton himself to writing poetry. 
As to fishing, he would have found the ground pre-occupied, 
and all the stock taken up ; for, though there are plenty of 
trout, yet, as my friend told me, there is at least a boy to 
every trout. But there is not a poet to every meadow ; 
so here are the lines : — 

In the sunshine lies the meadow, 

Sleeping by the stream, 
A soft and lovely meadow 

Remembered from a dream. 

A dream now strangely stirring — 

A thought that springs in tears— 
The lovely past recurring, 

A dream of early years. 

On the border of the meadow 

Where flows that happy stream, 
There 's many a flitting shadow, 

And many a dancing gleam. 

For the bright green leaves are trembling 

In the gentle summer breeze, 
The light and shade commingling 

Beneath the willow trees. 

The stream is softly flowing 
With a ripple low and sweet, 



NATURE IN THE BERKSHIRE MOUNTAINS. 141 

Where the willow branches bowing 
The lovely waters meet. 

And in the ripple hiding 

The trout securely lies, 
Or neath the green bank gliding 

Escapes the angler's eyes. 

Here the meadow-larks are singing, 

And the cat-bird and the jay, 
Harshly or softly flinging 

Their joyous notes away. 

And hopping there, or flying, 

With happy sounds of life, 
The insect tribes are plying 

Their puny toil and strife. 

It is a lonely meadow, 

No human dwelling near, 
A green and pleasant meadow, 

And the stream is cool and clear. 

This meadow is no strange one. 

These sounds I 've heard before ; 
The days of boyhood bygone 

These sounds and sights restore. 

there beneath the willow, 
Beside a gentle stream, 

The soft grass was my pillow, m 

When I lay me down to dream. 

What dreamt I in the meadow 

Beside the gentle stream % 
What was the flitting shadow, 

And what the sunny gleam 7 

1 may not tell — I may not tell — 

'Tis not for common ears — 
But who like me hath dreamt, full well 
Remembers it with tears. 



NATURE AT ROCKAWAY, 



The beach is cool and lonely. The margin of the ocean, 
and a vast tract of land on its borders, make up an unin- 
habitable desert, like some of the wastes of Egypt. Scat- 
tered with the unavailing attempts of Nature to spread a 
carpet of tough spiky grass over the sand, the region 
reminded me of some of the borders of the Nile near the 
temples of Thebes, except that here there are no palm 
trees, nor indeed a solitary shrub of any kind for some dis- 
tance from the shore. The Pavilion, on the edge of this 
desert, commands a vast, majestic ocean view, of undis- 
turbed sublimity. To get to the beach across the sand, 
you have a rude raised walk of boards, and for the con- 
venience of bathing you have sundry huts, on wheels or 
stationary, equally rude, with tents or bowers made of 
fresh-cut evergreens and dry old hemlocks intermingled, 
where you may recline on wooden benches, shielded from 
the sun, and gaze upon the face of the sea. The thunder 
of the surf is grand. It rolls along an extent of six or 
eight miles of smooth white sand, unbroken, not so hard to 
the hoof of a horse as some beaches you may have walked 
upon, but broad, level and beautiful. Now if we had some 
tall jagged cliffs for the surge to beat against, or some 
fearful ranges of breakers, or a high overhanging promon- 
tory, from which to watch the changes of ocean, the com- 
bination would be perfect. 

" He views the ships that come and go. 
Looking so like to living things ; 



NATURE AT ROCKAWAV. 143 

O ! 'tis a proud and gallant show 
Of bright and broad-spread wings, 
Flinging a glory round them, as they keep 
Their course right onward thro' the unsounded deep. 

"And where the far-off sand-bars lift 
Their backs in long and narrow line, 
The breakers shout, and leap, and shift, 
And send the sparkling brine 
Into the air : then rush to mimic strife : — 
Glad creatures of the sea ! How all seems life !" 

Who that has read Mr. Dana's Poem of " The Buc- 
caneer," from which these two stanzas are taken, and then 
visited a sea-beach, has not remembered it, and thanked 
the Poet for it ? Its descriptions are admirably vivid and 
striking, more wild and imaginative than the sketches of 
sea-shore scenery from the accurate pencil of Crabbe. This 
beach at Rockaway is wild and lonely, a good place for 
Matthew Lee to ride with his spectre-horse, and out-run the 
racing surf, and see the ship on fire, and the moon, and the 
mists. But there are no dripping rocks for Matthew Lee 
to climb upon. 

" In thick dark nights he'd take his seat 

High up the cliffs, and feel them shake, 
As swung the sea with heavy beat 
Below — and hear it break 
With savage roar, then pause and gather strength, 
And then, come tumbling in its swollen length." 

The sea sometimes rages as well as roars, even when it 
is not stormy at Rockaway. We have had charming 
weather, but a strong south wind has blown the sea into 
such furious breakers on the beach, and they hurry and 
race one after the other with such impetuous strife, and 
high tide of commotion, that it is almost like a tempest. 
Each wave behind seems flying to devour and swallow up 
the one preceding it. In they come, with such a rush, 
tumble and confusion, as makes the white yeasty waters 
boil and foam as if the tail of Leviathan had stirred them. 

This is a capital surf to bathe in. You should have a 



144 NATURE AT ROCKAWAY. 

life preserver or swimming belt, and then you may go far 
out, and enjoy it fully. You ride upon the great crested 
waves like a sea-gull, and they swing you about, or send 
you dancing in upon the beach, or burst over you like a 
cataract, and still you rise, as if with elastic rebound they 
were tossing you into the air, instead of seeking to smother 
you. It is fine invigorating sport. And there is probably 
something in the beat of the briny surf, as it strikes upon 
you, that aids the ordinary bracing action of a salt water 
bath. Then, too, the exercise of swimming is so admirable ! 
Three times a day we have followed it up, till a keg of 
pickled beef was scarcely ever better salted. Besides, the 
air itself has been so saturated with salt moisture in the 
prevalence of this fresh south breeze, that our clothes have 
almost gotten stiff with salt ; a little more, and we should 
be fine specimens of incrustations. 

But the perfection of beauty and enjoyment in this scene, 
and in the bathing, also, is by moonlight. How beautiful 
the ocean, with the white-crested tops of the waves rolling 
in upon the beach beneath the fall moon, the smooth sand 
glittering like a steel or silver floor, the shells themselves and 
the wave-worn stones shining like silver pebbles in mosaic, 
with the creamy foam of the sea sparkling over them, and 
the melancholy little beach-birds running among them ! In 
the direction of the moon, the sea almost blazes with her 
lines of silvery light, while in the other quarter of the hor- 
izon it looks black and terrible. There in the distance, 
far over the dark waves, you see the two red lights that on 
the Jersey shore instruct and warn the mariner. One of 
these lights is fixed, the other is revolving ; emblems, you 
may think, of the difference between the immutability of 
religious truth in the word of God, and in changing human 
experience. See ! you never lose sight of one ; there it 
shines, with a steady, changeless lustre. But the other 
disappears. Now it is gone, now it shines again. They 
look alike, when you see them together, but the one is 
revolving and partial, the other is stationary and perpetual 



NATURE IN A TROPICAL VOYAGE AT SEA. 



When you come to the news of a trial that had been 
waiting for you, while in ignorance of it you had been 
going on in an easy if not happy mood, in the enjoyment 
of God's mercies, you seem to yourself to have done wrong 
in not being afflicted beforehand. This is especially the 
case, if you find that God's hand has been laid in affliction 
on those dear to you. So there seems something inconsist- 
ent in your having a delightful voyage, when even before 
it commenced God had clothed you in unconscious mourn- 
ing. Nevertheless, this makes no difference in his mercy. 

We had indeed a delightful voyage, and I mention it, to 
suggest the same voyage to those who, returning from 
Europe in the autumn, may dread the roughness of a 
northern passage, and the cold and perils of our coast in 
that season. In a few days from our leaving Havre, we 
found ourselves in a mild and balmy atmosphere, in delicious 
weather, in smooth seas, under the influence of a wind so 
prosperous and invariable that sometimes a ship may run 
before it for weeks without changing a sail. You can 
scarcely conceive anything connected with the sea, more 
delightful than crossing the ocean in this manner. Evening 
after evening the day closed with such magnificent sunsets, 
as only at sea between the tropics you can ever witness, 
and morning after morning the dawn broke, and the sun 
rose, with a beauty and a glory, which to see but once 
would be worth a voyage to Europe, if you could see it in 
no other way. In all this lovely weather we had a lovely 

7 



146 NATURE IN A TROPICAL VOYAGE AT SEA. 

moon, and we watched her course from the pale silver 
thread that at first scarcely outshone the star that sailed 
with her in the heavens, to the splendor of her fulness ; 
and what can be more beautiful than the foil moon in a 
summer latitude at sea ? What more beautiful than such 
a moon rising from the sea amidst lovely sailing clouds into 
the deep heaven, and creating that long, tremulous line of 
light between the ship and the horizon, in which the waves 
roll like liquid gold ? And what more beautiful than to 
witness, in a calm summers night, a total eclipse of such 
a moon riding in mid heaven ? And then, again, what 
more beautiful than to watch the moon and stars contending 
in their lustre with the breaking dawn and lost so gradually 
and softly in the advancing splendor of the sunrise ? 

The phenomenon of the eclipse we witnessed about the 
middle of our passage ; it was indescribably beautiful, and 
as solemn as beautiful, to see the veil drawn over the face 
of the planet as by the hand of God, to see the stars come 
out, and darkness settle over the waste of waters, and then 
again the veil slowly withdrawn, the stars hidden, and a 
mild, pale lustre diffused upon the bosom of the deep. And 
we, the watchers in this solitary ship, marking this solemn 
scene, shall it not make us feel how easily God can veil 
our life in darkness — can put, if he pleases, the light of our 
eyes far from us ? When He giveth quietness, who then 
can make trouble ? and when He hideth his face, who then 
can behold him ? whether it be done against a nation, or 
against a man only ? The hiding of God's face ! If men 
saw and felt it as clearly as they see the darkening of the 
heavenly bodies in an eclipse, what grief and consternation 
would it spread over the world ! But men care little for 
the darkness, who have never seen or known the light. 
And this, alas, is the case with most men in reference to 
God. 

It was near the middle of December when we arrived 
amidst the Bahama islands and banks, the weather still 



NATURE IN A TROPICAL VOYAGE AT SEA. 147 

continuing delightful, and the wind fair. The passage 
across the banks is sometimes not unattended with danger, 
and it may well make a seafaring man anxious, when his 
vessel passes suddenly from deep water into the midst of a 
shoal where the ship's keel is but a foot or two from the 
bottom. All the way across the banks you hear the deep, 
melancholy voice of the leadsman, as he heaves the line 
and announces the fathoms deep, and all the way you can 
see the dark sponges on the white sand, like tufts of ever- 
green in the desert. There are fearful jagged reefs on the 
edges of the banks, which, as we passed them towards 
evening, looked in the horizon like the ruins of an ancient 
city. It was almost calm, yet the spray was dashing high 
upon them, and we were glad when again we had plenty 
of sea-room between our little ship and the grim forms of 
such dangerous breakers. 

We arrived in safety, by the mercy of God, although a 
tempestuous night which we had to spend about twenty 
miles from the shores of Cuba, made all on board anxious, 
and made me think of the solemn lines of Dante ; solemn 
they are at sea, when you are getting to the close of your 
voyage, since a vessel's perils increase with every league 
by which she nears the coast. 

For I have seen the ship that o'er the sea 
Ran safe and speedy, perish at the last, 
Even in the harbor's mouth. 

So it is often with our plans of happiness and usefulness in 
life, of the wreck of which, however, we are ourselves too 
frequently the cause, and can only suffer silently in the 
light of an experience " which does but illumine the path 
that has been passed over." But there is a brighter side 
to Dante's lines, for he says also that he has seen many a 
bush, which through the winter showed nothing but un- 
sightly sticks and thorns, 

Bear yet the lovely rose upon its top. 



148 NATURE IN A TROPICAL VOYAGE AT SEA. 

There are plants, for which this world is all winter, and of 
which you will never see the rose, till you find it blossom- 
ing in heaven. 

I wish again to recommend this tropical voyage from 
Europe to the West Indies, for any persons of delicate health 
or constitution, who are obliged to return to the United 
States late in the Autumn. True, it takes a longer time, 
but the most fatal mistakes are sometimes made with in- 
valids for want of a little longer time, and there is often 
the most fatal choice of the season for a voyage. I lately 
perused a most affecting manuscript journal of a young 
clergyman, who in pursuit of health left a circle of dear 
friends, a warm fireside, and every comfort, in the month 
of December, on a voyage to the Mediterranean, in a ship, 
of which the cabin itself had like to have proved his grave 
in the outward voyage, being close, damp, cold. By this 
and the boisterous weather, he found himself more ill than 
he probably would have been on shore, even in winter. 
Then, after this, having recruited a little in the south of 
France, which itself, Marseilles at least, is a miserable 
climate in winter, he undertook to return in the month 
of February, but never reached the land, though the ship 
arrived in safety. 

A mild and somewhat dry air at sea is requisite for such 
an invalid, and if he cannot go in such a latitude or such a 
season as to secure this, it would be better to remain at 
home, or go to the South by land. A voyage from Cuba 
to the Mediterranean in the spring, or from the Mediter- 
ranean to Cuba in the Autumn or Winter, is delightful, and 
ordinarily it is one of the safest voyages in the world; 
where, if halcyon birds of calm do not sit brooding on the 
wave, it is not because it is too troubled, for the breeze, 
which fans your temples like the west wind in June, 
keeps it in such steady and playful motion, that it would 
rock the black duck, with her glossy wing, like a cradle. 

Among the many instructive lessons which a mind so 



NATURE IN A TROPICAL VOYAGE AT SEA. 149 

disposed may learn at sea, that of self-examination is an 
impressive one. A soul on the voyage of life must know 
its motives, and its besetting sins and dangers. There are 
so many under-currents, of which, if a man be ignorant, 
let his sails and his helm be as they may, he will go to 
destruction. It is not enough that the ship's course be set 
right, and her helm kept steady. Sailing from Cuba, we 
thought we had gained on our course, one day, about sixty 
miles, but at the next observation found we had lost more 
than thirty. It was an unknown current. The ship had 
really been going forward with the wind, but going back 
likewise with the current. Under certain circumstances, 
unless such a current were taken into consideration in 
setting a ship's course, she would be wrecked, with ever so 
fair a wind. So with the heart and its motives. A man's 
course may seem to be set right, with a fair wind towards 
heaven, but what is the under-current, what is its direc- 
tion ? Which way is his inward existence moving ? And 
how far may the needle in his compass be turned out of its 
course, by the concealed loadstone of self-interest? 



THE DISCONTENTED LADY-BIRD. 

A PROVERB ILLUSTRATED. 



It is an active thing, that hath much meaning in it, — that 
old proverb, — A rolling' stone gathers no moss. It re- 
minds me of Homer's Kulindeto. The application of it 
may be abused, for it might seem to sanction sluggishness, 
and the want of energy and enterprise ; a little more sleep, 
a little more slumber ; a soft bed of moss is a very pleasant 
thing for a stone to recline upon. Pity to disturb it by 
rolling. 

But there is a side of bright truth to this proverb, and a 
sin of restlessness, change, and discontent in man, which it 
condemns. Men are never satisfied with the dispensations 
of Providence towards them, and instead of asking, How 
may I make the most out of my present situation, and do the 
most good in it ? they are always uneasy, always ready for 
a change. Meddle not with a man given to change. Rep- 
utation is a thing of gradual growth ; it comes from ac- 
quaintance, from stability, from habit ; if it be good, let a 
man stay by it. It is the house of his character, and three 
removes are equal to one fire. 

Steadiness of purpose, with a contented mind, is worth 
more than a great many shining qualities, that are not so 
stable. I shall try to illustrate this for the little children, 
and therefore we must put our proverb into a parable. 

There was once a little Robin Readbreast, very fickle- 
minded and fanciful. It was a wonder to everybody how 



THE DISCONTENTED LADY-BIRD. 151 

she could ever fix upon a husband, and how any bird that 
valued his own family happiness, and knew anything of her 
character, could take her to wife. However, she was very 
pretty, with a very sweet voice, and a little roving Robin 
fell in love with her, and in the Spring-time they were 
married, and went to making their nest. Little master 
Robin worked like a good fellow, early and late, and they 
had nearly got the nest finished, in fine time for the sum- 
mer season, when the Lady-bird discovered a thorn in it, 
which it was difficult to remove, without breaking it up, 
and so persuaded her husband to abandon it. 

Then they went to w r ork upon another, but no sooner had 
they got it nicely feathered, and warm and comfortable, 
than the discontented Lady-bird found that it was too high 
in the tree, and that a strong wind would overset it. So 
she persuaded her husband to abandon that also. Then 
they commenced another in the centre of a barberry bush, 
where it would be very difficult for any school-boy to come 
at it ; and they had just got it almost ready for their abode, 
when the Lady-bird, returning one day from a visit, told her 
husband, who had been working hard all day to finish the 
nest, and had even got a company of upholsterers to help 
him, that the materials out of which they had built it were 
so far inferior to their neighbors', and so unfashionable, that 
it would never do to dwell in it ; all their friends, she 
affirmed, would cut their acquaintance. So, by dint of 
much complaining, she persuaded her mate to abandon that 
also. 

Now there was a wise old owl in that neighborhood, that 
had been watching their proceedings, and one day, when 
they came near his nest to gather some down and soft moss 
for another of their own, he thus addressed them. " Silly 
birds ! Do you not see how the season is advancing, and 
with every change you are losing in time more than you 
are gaining in taste ? See how the very berries on your 
Barberry-bush are becoming red with the approach of Au- 



152 THE DISCONTENTED LADY-BIRD. 

tumn ! By the time you get satisfied with your nest, the 
warm months will be over, and then what will you do with 
your young ? Had you been contented with your first situ- 
ation, you might by this time have had a family of songsters 
about you, all provided for. But you will never be happy 
so given to change, for a rolling stone gathers no moss, and 
your discontent is always preventing you from realizing the 
happiness that you might enjoy in life. 

" And let me tell you, pretty Mrs. Robin Redbreast,'' 
said he to the Lady-bird, u that if you go on giving your- 
self such airs, instead of contentedly helping your good- 
natured husband in his efforts to provide for your heirs, you 
will never have a family, though you live to be as old as 
the Phoenix." 

The Lady-bird tossed up her head at this, and flew off, 
declaring that she never heard such a miserable pun in all 
her life. But Master Robin was very much mortified. 
And it turned out just as the old owl had predicted ; for 
though these two Robins at length got settled, and had a 
couple of little bright speckled eggs shining in their nest, 
yet it was so late, that one frosty morning, just after the 
young had broken their shells, and while the parents were 
looking up a few seeds and worms for breakfast, the poor 
little things were so badly chilled that they died ; and then, 
in the first emigration, the bereaved Robins had to go off to 
the tropics in mourning. 



SECRET OF SUCCESS IN PREACHING. 



Fletcher of Madely was one of the most earnest and suc- 
cessful of preachers. He was a man of prayer, much prayer, 
and herein lay the secret of his power. His biographer tells 
us, that " his preaching was perpetually preceded, accom- 
panied, and succeeded by prayer. Before he entered upon 
the performance of his duty, he requested of the great Mas- 
ter of Assemblies a subject adapted to the conditions of his 
people ; earnestly soliciting for himself wisdom, utterance, 
and power ; for them a serious frame, an unprejudiced 
mind, and a retentive heart. The necessary preparation for 
the profitable performance of his ministerial duties was of 
longer or shorter duration, according to his peculiar state at 
the time ; and frequently he could form an accurate judg- 
ment of the effect that would be produced in public, by the 
languor or enlargement he had experienced in private. The 
spirit of prayer accompanied him from the closet to the pul- 
pit ; and while he was virtually employed in pressing the 
truth upon his hearers, he was inwardly engaged in plead- 
ing that last great promise of his unchangeable Lord, ' I am 
with you always, even unto the end of the world.' From 
the great congregation he again withdrew to his sacred re- 
treat, there requesting in secret that a blessing might ac- 
company his public labors, and that the seed which he had 
sown, being treasured up in honest and good hearts, might 
sooner or later become abundantly fruitful." 

All good ministers of the Lord Jesus do thus seek the 



154 SECRET OF SUCCESS IN PREACHING. 

blessing of God before and after their pulpit labors. But 
there is a great difference in the degree of earnestness and 
fervor with which they seek, and of course a proportionate 
difference in the degree of blessing which they gain. Some 
knock loudly, others faintly ; some strike once, twice, thrice, 
others seven times ; some wrestle with tears, others are com- 
paratively formal. There is no gift of Divine Grace more 
precious to a minister of Christ than a spirit of persevering 
fervency in prayer, no gift which he ought to seek more 
earnestly and to cultivate more assiduously. Oftentimes, 
perhaps, when he is laboring away upon his discourses, and 
thinks that this and that presentation of truth must be 
effectual, the good effect upon his hearers is owing more to 
his prayers than his sermons. A minister's prayers may be 
compared to the powder, by firing which the cannon-ball is 
sent upon its errand ; without the prayers, his sermons will 
be little better than a heap of cannon-balls without powder. 
There must be prayer from a heart on fire. 

Some sermons are like a bright artillery -piece for a model : 
all finished, burnished, shining ; everybody says; " What a 
splendid piece of ordnance !" People stand and look into 
its mouth, and measure its breech, and lift the ball it can 
carry, and admire it without fear, for there is no powder in 
it. It is not meant to shoot any person, but to attract ad- 
miration as a finished piece of ordnance. An elaborate 
model-sermon, without prayer, is a gun that a man might 
put his ear to the muzzle of without fear. And some ser- 
mons are like the artillery-pieces that are wheeled into line 
in a sham-fight, and fired with blank cartridges. There 
must be both powder and ball, if execution is to be done. 
Above all things, there must be much prayer. There must 
be prayer on fire. 



NATURE IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 



If you will take the map of the world, and draw a line 
from north to south at twenty-four degrees twenty-six 
minutes west longitude, and then intersect it by a line 
drawn from east to west at forty-one degrees and six min- 
utes north latitude, you will probably find, at the point of 
intersection, the place of our present existence on the broad 
Atlantic. You will see that we are not far from the Azores, 
but perhaps twelve hundred miles from our desired haven. 
We have learned that a sea-voyage, with all its lessons 
of man's insignificance and dependence, will not, of itself, 
necessarily draw the heart to God. Watchfulness and 
prayer, even amidst all the sublimities and dangers of the 
ocean, are just as necessary as on the land. It would be 
a season of growth in grace unparalleled, if a sea-voyage 
awakened and sharpened the soul's hungerings after right- 
eousness as powerfully as it does the body's mortal appe- 
tites. But the heart must be kept with all diligence, or 
no external circumstances can keep it. Trials alone will 
not soften it, blessings will not purify it, dangers will not 
make it cleave to God. Nothing but his own blessed Spirit 
can do this. 

For a season we were in the neighborhood of one of those 
uncertain rocks laid down in the charts of the Atlantic 
Ocean, which the Spaniards call vigia, the look-out, which 
few mariners, if any, have met with, but with which once 
to meet might be destruction. Our captain endeavored to 
keep the ship on a course eighteen or twenty miles at least 



156 NATURE IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN, 



i 



to the south of the reef, the supposed proximity of which 
made us a little anxious. After a day or two, the ship, to 
his surprise, notwithstanding her southerly course, and the 
very favorable winds we had been experiencing, had not 
made the southing, or progress southward, which he ex- 
pected, and it was soon found that while our course was 
set right, and the breezes seemed to aid us, a strong current, 
of which no one had been aware, setting the other way, 
defeated our calculations, and carried us almost exclusively 
eastward. The incident seemed to our minds a striking 
symbol of the dangers encountered in the Christian conflict, 
and of the frequent failures in a man's course through life. 
Sometimes, when it seems to be set right, and all influ- 
ences propitious, an undetected cause hinders our advance- 
ment ; a hidden prejudice, an unsuspected flaw in the char- 
acter, a sinful propensity ungoverned, a selfish plan secretly 
cherished, may turn the Christian from his God. Opposing 
currents and concealed ones, the heart's natural bias, par- 
ticular inclinations and besetting sins, are to be discovered 
and watched against. For want of this, the charts of Chris- 
tian experience are dotted all over with the black marks of 
sunken rocks and melancholy shipwrecks. 

At length we are within sight of land, and gliding along 
with a soft and pleasant breeze on our course to Gibraltar. 
This morning, for the first time, I beheld the old world, 
the world, whose very soil and atmosphere seem older than 
our own, so powerful is the effect of their association with 
the ideas of ancient institutions and manners, cities, towers, 
and temples, that have stood the revolutions of a thousand 
years. The land we made was Cape St. Vincent, with a 
lofty convent rising on its outermost extremity, whose 
white walls are the first object that arrests the eye of the 
stranger. Thus the first introduction of the mind to the 
knowledge of this country is the hieroglyphic of its history 
for ages, and the badge of its present degradation. Amidst 



NATURE IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 157 

the historical recollections that crowd upon the memory, I 
can scarcely realize that I have been all day sailing within 
sight of the coast of the ancient Lusitania, the kingdom 
of Portugal. 



Another evening, and we are still quietly moving to- 
wards Gibraltar. It is now a dead calm, but the current 
sets through the straits with such rapidity, that we are 
moving on at the rate of four or five miles an hour. I 
seem all in a romance or a dream, when I find myself thus 
wafted onward with the coast of Spain in full sight on one 
side, and the shores of Africa on the other. In imagina- 
tion I have been often here, but never thought to see these 
lands in sober certainty of waking vision. There is no 
moon, but the stars are out, and the coast on either side is 
clearly visible. Surely it is a very great mercy to have 
been preserved from every disaster, and brought so near to 
our first destined port in safety ; we are equally dependent 
on an unseen God to carry us securely though the short 
remaining distance. Often do I think, and with much 
solemnity, of those beautiful lines of Dante, beginning — 

" For I have seen 
The bark that all the way across the sea 
Ran straight and speedy, perish at the last 
Even in the haven's mouth." 

There is more in this than a landsman imagines ; for a 
sailor's perils thicken as he nears the harbor. An hour's 
fog on the coast may wreck him, when a week's storm at 
sea would do him no injury. 



Another lovely evening, and we found ourselves riding 
peacefully in the romantic harbor of Gibraltar. Amidst 
external objects, I have seldom spent a day of such en- 
chantment as the first we passed within the walls of that 
celebrated fortress. It was almost a realization of the 



158 NATURE IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 

dreams that have captivated my childish imagination in 
oriental tales. Nothing ever so strongly depicted before 
me the coloring, or made me breathe the atmosphere, of the 
Arabian Nights' Entertainments. If I had been dropped 
from the clouds, or transported unknowingly from the 
familiar scenes at home to those around me, I could 
scarcely have been more surprised and filled with admira- 
tion at the contrast. Such a mingling of the sublime, 
beautiful, and picturesque, with the grotesque and the lu- 
dicrous, of the ordinary with the romantic, of strength in 
art with majesty in nature, of war and peace, of all dia- 
lects, figures, faces, garbs, and religions, of lovely scenery 
with human life and artificial manners. 

When we arrived in the bay, the ship had dropped anchor 
while we were asleep, and I went upon deck during the 
night, without the least expectation of the extraordinary 
nature of the scenery around me. The first object that 
arrested my sight, with a nearness and vividness really 
startling, was the black, frowning mountain, rising like a 
huge bank of cloud against the sky, with its lower half all 
illuminated by the lights in the city. It seemed as if a 
multitude of meteors or lanterns had been hung one above 
another against the sides of the mountain, constituting one 
of the most picturesque scenes I ever beheld. Around me 
rose a perfect amphitheatre of hills, enclosing the smooth 
expanse of harbor like a lake, or mirror for the surround- 
ing panorama. The calm night, the bright stars, the 
smooth and peaceful water, the ships of war riding around 
us, the encircling shore, the distant mountains, and in the 
front the great Rock of Gibraltar, with an illuminated vil- 
lage hung upon its base, in such nearness, that it seemed 
almost to overhang the ship, formed altogether a scene of 
exciting interest for its novelty and beauty. Its power 
was increased rather than diminished, when the morning 
rose upon it, and in the clear light, with all the enchanting 
effect of distance and shade, its hidden materials, in various 






NATURE IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 159 

coloring, came into notice ; the rough grey summit of the 
mountain, the Moorish castle hanging half way down, the 
grotesque looking buildings, clustered in narrow terraces 
above each other, as though each terrace stood upon the 
roof of the next below, the fortifications at the base, the 
vessels of every description revealed in the harbor, the 
towns of San Roque and Algesiras in the north and west, 
and the receding hills and mountains lovely in the sunlight. 



MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 



By this time you are all surrounded at home by snow- 
drifts half as high as the top of the house, while we are sit- 
ting comfortably in January without a fire, in the noon of a 
day as lovely as the pleasantest of our days in Spring. From 
this you may judge of the climate. Since the rain the 
weather is delightful, and the mountains around Malaga 
are already putting on a richer and more verdant coloring. 

It was a clear and splendid afternoon when we weighed 
anchor in the bay of Algesiras, and bidding adieu, for the 
present, to the sublime scenery and impregnable fortifica- 
tions of Gibraltar, stood out into the Mediterranean, on our 
course for Malaga. The distance is only sixty miles, but 
for want of wind we were a night and a day in accomplish- 
ing it. It was a delightful sail, for the sea was smooth, 
and sparkled beneath the beams of a cloudless sun, the air 
was clear, and nothing could be more lovely than the out- 
line of the coast of Spain, as far as the eye could view it. 
The distant mountains of Grenada, covered with snow, 
were always visible, and nearer to the coast, the eye ranged 
among the receding mountains of Andalusia, sprinkled over 
with the white farm-houses of the peasantry. The beauty 
of the changing and deepening tints in the sky and on the 
tops of the mountains at evening as the sun goes down be- 
hind them is extreme. Though the middle of December, 
it was a sunset sky as soft and beautiful while it lasted, as 
ours in midsummer. But at this season the twilight passes 



MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 161 

rapidly, and the rich coloring of the evening horizon was 
almost as momentary as it was exquisite and changeful. 

There is no great beauty in the approach towards Malaga 
from the sea, except in the grandeur of the Cathedral, and 
the lofty fortress of the Gibral-Faro. These noble piles of 
Spanish and Moorish architecture are distinguishable at a 
great distance, towering far above the whole city, and 
placed in bold relief against the brown declivities of the 
mountains in the back ground. From the interior the ap- 
proach to the city and the Mediterranean is very lovely, 
for you descend from the very summits of the mountains 
that sweep down upon the luxuriant vega or plain in which 
Malaga is so beautifully situated, winding gradually down- 
wards into its bosom, varying your view every moment, 
with the plain, the city, and the sea all before you. As 
to the architecture of the city, except its splendid Cathedral, 
and some few Moorish remains, interesting to an antiquary, 
it has nothing. Neither do the fine arts flourish, nor litera- 
ture, nor religion; nothing but grapes, almonds, raisins, 
wheat, wine, and oil. There are all things in this delicious 
region to gladden man's heart, to strengthen his bones, and 
to make his face to shine ; but for his mind and his spiritual 
being, nothing. 

Out of doors the air is full of pictures. Come with me, 
and we will take a very early stroll through the city, to 
see its life, on a morning as balmy and delightful in the 
middle of January as the sweet days in the pleasantest part 
of a New England Spring. We are now close by the 
Cathedral, and in the interior of the city. 

Directing our steps first towards the mole, we emerge 
suddenly from the narrow street to a view of the whole 
harbor, with its variety of shipping and multitude of lighters 
and small boats commencing the day's activity, and shining 
brightly in the sunrise. Off the harbor, a very large ship, 
apparently a man of war, may be seen through the glass, 
standing across the bay, perhaps to gain an entrance. Sea- 



162 MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

ward, everything looks full of life and animation, bright 
waves curling in the breeze, and white sails in the distant 
horizon glancing to the sun. Through scattered groups of 
peasants and boatmen gathering to their day's labors, we 
pass along the mole, till our attention is arrested by a gang 
of presidarios, or prisoners, chained, ragged and wretched 
in their appearance, stupid, sensual and ferocious, seated on 
the wall by the road side, and eating their breakfast of 
black bread, as though there were nothing else in the world 
worthy of notice. 

From the mole we enter upon the Alameda, and cross- 
ing its smooth and at this hour nearly solitary walks, strike 
into the busy hive in the main market place of the city. 
This consists of an open square, from which several streets 
diverge, and in every part of which, as in the narrow stalls 
around it, the peasants expose their produce and eatables. 
The variety and luxuriant abundance of green vegetables 
and salads in mid- winter will arrest your notice. Some- 
times you see them arranged in the central part of the 
square, in the form of a hollow parallelogram, within 
which groups of peasants are loitering, with their mules 
just unladed, while crowds of household servants, both 
men and women, and here and there a master of the house, 
are gathering the day's supply of provisions, which they 
put into open grass baskets or bags, and carry home upon 
their shoulders. Men, women and children stand at their 
piles of vegetable merchandise, or in the mouths of their 
little stalls, and attract your attention by the vivacity of 
their cries, if not by the novelty of their articles. The 
abundance of ripe, red tomatoes is a rich spectacle, piled 
up in lofty pyramids, and flanked perhaps by the long, 
grey scolloped leaves and white roots of the Spanish arti- 
choke, or luxuriant heaps of green and tender lettuces. 
Green peas are a customary article at all seasons. Bas- 
kets of green cresses, and bunches of white cauliflower, 
turnips and radishes, parsley and spinnage, with heaps of 






MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 163 

enormous onions, piles of long red potatoes, stacks of sugar 
cane, and immense quantities of oranges and lemons, both 
sweet and sour, cover the ground in every direction. 

A street leading from one corner of the square is occu- 
pied as a bread-market, and makes a very rich display, 
considering the simplicity of its materials. At this hour 
it is crowded with borricos just in from the country, with 
their panniers filled with loaves of the nicest bread, white 
and brown, the owners busy in disposing of their loads to 
customers. In one end of this street you see a row of 
matrons, seated by the house-wall, with variously formed 
loaves of brown bread, spread out in baskets or mats upon 
the pavement before them, and chattering with one another 
and the peasantry with a merry glee, inspired by the 
morning air, the busy scene, the hope of good gain, and 
the plenty before them. The sight indeed is enough to 
renew the appetite of childhood, and make even the con- 
firmed dyspeptic forget his cares. The diet-lecturers and 
bran-bread consumers in our country would dance for glee 
at the spectacle ; for in truth the brown bread of the prov- 
ince of Andalusia is some of the lightest, sweetest, and 
most wholesome in the world. The white bread is equally 
excellent in its kind. It is baked in circular rolls, shaped 
like a diamond ring, or in square loaves, which are sold 
for eight or ten cents, the brown loaves being considerably 
cheaper. One reason for the constant excellence of the 
bread in Spain is because it is thoroughly kneaded and 
equably and thoroughly baked. It is brought into the city 
in open panniers in the clear morning air, instead of being 
shut up smoking from the oven, to perspire in the bakers' 
carts. Sometimes the whole quantity brought in of a 
morning is condemned and given to the poor, simply be- 
cause the loaves are found deficient in weight. 

In Grenada I have seen a kind of bread exposed for 
sale, made of the garabanzos or Spanish beans, of a golden 
yellow color, but not very pleasant to the taste, though 



164 MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

doubtless nutritious in its quality. If sour bread be 
rightly put down among the sources of domestic discontent, 
perhaps the cheerfulness of the Spanish peasantry may be 
attributed partly to the sweetness of their brown loaves ; 
at all events, with such bread, and a plenty of olive oil, 
and the common fruits and vegetables of the country, they 
may live perhaps better than the peasantry of any other 
country in Europe. A very common and favorite dish 
called migas is composed entirely of bread crumbled very 
fine into a frying-pan with oil and salt, the crumbling and 
stirring continued over the fire till the mass is sufficient in 
quantity, and rendered savory with the seasoning. The 
sweetness of the bread is preserved, and the dish appears 
upon the table a pile of light crumbs, a little moistened 
with the oil, and a little embrowned in the operation of 
frying ; nor could any man of simple appetite desire a more 
wholesome and relishing breakfast. In the country they 
cook it in immense quantities, adding to it shreds of meat, 
garlic, and red pepper, and composing a dish as familiar to 
a Spanish peasant, as an oriental pilau to the natives of 
the East. 

I am afraid of saying too much upon a business so gross 
as that of eating. Si tibi deficiant medici, says an old 
dietetical adage, 

Si tibi deficiant medici. medici tibi fiant 

Hsec tria ; mens hilaris, requies, moderata dioeta. 

If you ivant physicians, take these three : quiet, a 
cheerful mind, and spare diet. Milton may paraphrase 
this pleasant maxim in the Penseroso, adding another line 
on the pleasure of rural exercise — 

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, 
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet : 
And add to these retired Leisure, 
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure. 

Intemperance is by no means confined to the drinking of 



MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 165 

ardent spirits. There are multitudes, who becloud the 
mind, and render the soul's upward aspirations difficult, 
if not impossible, by the indulgence of an appetite, which 
they never dream of being inordinate, but continue to 
cherish as an indication of hearty health. If a man may 
be a drunkard upon wine, so may he be a glutton upon 
vegetables. "Our elegant eaters," says Cicero, in one of 
his letters, " in order to bring vegetables into fashion, have 
found out a method of dressing them in so high a taste, 
that nothing can be more palatable. It was immediately 
after having eaten very freely of a dish of this sort, at the 
inauguration feast of Lentulus, that I was attacked with a 
disorder which has never ceased till this day. Thus you 
see that I, who have withstood all the temptations that the 
noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in my way, have 
at last been overpowered by paltry beets and mallows." 
If all the philosophy of Cicero could not save him from 
being overcome in this manner, perhaps even the Graham 
bread may not always preserve its disciples from tempt- 
ation. 

From one side of the vegetable-market we pass a short 
distance into the Alhondiga, or grain-market, a large pile 
of buildings formerly connected with the great Moorish 
naval arsenal, and used as a mosque, but afterwards con- 
verted into a convent by the Catholics, and now turned to 
the more useful purposes of a deposit for wheat. It con- 
tains storehouses and arched stalls, with a broad open court 
in the midst, where the grain lies before you in heaps and 
sacks, just brought from the country by groups of peasants, 
who are bargaining for its disposal. The wheat of Malaga 
is one of the most important and excellent productions of 
this region ; the kingdom of Andalusia producing so great 
a quantity that it has been called the granary of Spain. 
Rain or no rain, says the proverb, there is wheat in Anda- 
lusia. Its superior excellence is one cause of the superiority 
of the bread. Its price in Malaga is from 46 to 52 reals a 



166 



MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 



faneg-a, or, upon an average, one dollar a bushel, the 
Spanish fanega containing a little over a bushel and a half 
of English measure. If this delightful province were a 
state within the limits of New England, fertile as is its 
soil, and abundant as are its productions, there would be a 
scarcity of bread-stuffs, through the remorseless consump- 
tion of the distilleries. I know not what would become of 
the multitude of the poor in this country, if those scourges 
of the world were as common here as they are with us. 
There are but few of them, and the people are unquestion- 
ably a temperate, and so far a happy and a healthy race. 
What an anomaly does it present when the United States 
are compelled to send into Europe for a supply of bread ! 
And what a pernicious example of political economy, when 
the legislatures of those States are seen legalizing the manu- 
facture and sale of ardent spirits, and thus absolutely turn- 
ing the agricultural industry of the country into its bane, 
and the source of its life and health into a poison ! House- 
less children are crying for food, while the distilleries are 
wasting it, and the arm of the law is stretched forth to pro- 
tect a trade that manufactures out of its waste and con- 
sumption, the materials to convert its homes into earthly 
hells, and their parents and natural protectors into brutes. 

Passing through one of the arches of the Alhondiga, we 
emerge into a street, on one side of which the inmates of 
the houses are busy frying fish upon open furnaces before 
their doors, and selling them to the passers by. A little 
urchin with one hand full of figs is bargaining with the 
mistress of one of these furnaces for a few buccaronies to 
complete his breakfast. These are a curious little fish, 
somewhat larger than " the triton of the minnows" in a 
fresh-water river, and are produced in such immense quan- 
tities in the bay of Malaga, as almost to constitute the 
riches of the fishermen and the living of the poor. They 
are very delicious and very cheap, so that they are con- 









MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 167 

sidered quite a peculiar gift of Providence to this region. 
Great quantities of them are made into anchovies. 

Around these various market-streets the crowd we meet 
is of the most motley character, men, women, and children, 
grey-haired and withered hags, that might have been the 
prototypes of Shakspeare's witches, some with strings of 
braided garlic, others with hats, shoes, and old clothes, 
others with rusty firelocks, or boxes of jewellery, others 
again with roasted chestnuts or baskets of fruit, anything 
that will tempt the motley multitude, and gain an ochavo 
in the bargain. Carriers of sweetmeats struggle through 
the crowd, others with earthen jars of water, others with 
a tin canister of hot coffee, and a basket of cups to drink it 
withal. The scene is as ragged a medley as can well be 
met with. In the dusk of the evening, when the lamps 
are lighted, its irregularity and wildness make it still more 
striking. 

From the market squares we will pass in our way home- 
wards through one of the main streets near the Guadal 
Medina, occupied partly by mechanics, some of whom are 
out before the doors of their cells, with their benches in 
the open air. Here is a man with an iron roller, bending 
sheets of thin wood for the manufacturer of sieves, which 
you see inside his shop, lining the walls, in every stage of 
their progress. Close by his side, a woman, with her fur- 
nace on the doorsteps .and a flat wooden spoon in her hand, 
is frying pancakes, or bunuelos, as they are called, for the 
palates of such as may choose. The trade of the bunuele- 
ras, or women who fry and sell these cakes, is quite a 
source of profit at the corners of frequented streets. A 
little onward, and we pass several shops of bottle-makers, 
or manufacturers of wine-bags, a singular spectacle to the 
eye of a stranger, the walls hung round in every direction 
with half-tanned inflated hogskins and goatskins, black, 
brown, and gray. The skin is taken entire from the ani- 
mal, and, turned inside out, constitutes the bottle or bag, 



168 MALAGA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

the hairy side being covered with a coating of pitch. 
Drinking vessels with wooden rims in the form of shot- 
pouches are manufactured from the same materials ; and 
you may often see the peasants, with their mules laden 
with bags of wine, stopping to drink of their contents out 
of these rustic cups. All the wine brought in from the 
country is thus transported in skins on the backs of mules, 
and is sold generally not by measure but weight. The 
same is the case with the olive oil ; but the bottles or bags 
for oil, instead of being coated with pitch, are tanned on 
both sides. In the district of Malaga alone there are more 
than five hundred oil presses. 

At the head of this street a water fountain plays perpet- 
ually, surrounded at this hour with a number of peasants, 
who are filling their jars with water by means of a long 
reed connected with the neck of the jar, and applied to 
the mouth of the fountain. Turning into another street, 
we meet a company of the same chained and haggard 
presidarios, whom we saw on the wall of the mole, their 
leader enveloped in a ragged capa, thrown over his shoul- 
ders with all the dignity of a Spanish grandee. They are 
employed in tying up immense heaps of black bread, lying 
before them on the pavement by the baker's door ; they 
raise it on their shoulders, and then file off in regular order 
towards their prison on the quay. The bread is the food 
of the prisoners, coarse, but sweet and wholesome. 

It is now the hour of mass in the churches. Entering 
the Sagrario, or parish church of the Cathedral, you see 
here and there a solitary worshipper, kneeling towards the 
altar, before which two or three priests, clad in their service- 
robes, are monotonously running over their superstitious 
ceremonies. A single female is kneeling at one of the 
confessional boxes, within which sits a portly padre, his 
ear bent attentively towards the netted window of the box, 
where the lips of the penitent are pouring forth the avowal 
of her sins. To God, to the saints, and to the priests, she 






milton's correspondence. 169 

makes the confession, and supplicates the latter to pray to 
saints and angels for the pardon of her soul. Her con- 
science is left with her confessor, and that within her 
bosom is almost seared and paralyzed by the habits of her 
religion. And the conclusion forced upon the mind by an 
attentive observance of the forms and influences of Popery 
in a Roman Catholic state, can be no other than this, that 
at best it is a religion which leaves the whole multitude of 
its followers without God in the ivorld. May the God of 
all grace have mercy upon this unhappy kingdom, and 
may the Faith of Christ speedily be established over the 
ruins of the Empire of the Man of Sin. 



MILTON'S CORRESPONDENCE. 

What would not the world give for a collection of 
Milton's Private Correspondence ! The only letters that 
we have of his are letters of State, grand letters, letters 
written with the wide eye of the world over the shoulder 
of the writer. But of epistolary correspondence, of that 
which is a careless hasty record of a man's familiar thoughts 
and feelings, as they come and go in the current of every 
day's existence, we have nothing. 

" Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart ; 
Thou hadst a voice, whose sound was like the sea ; 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; 
So didst thou travel on life's common way." 

We hear the roar of the sea ; the voice in English liter- 
ature is as that of Niagara among waters. We behold, 
too, the perpetual shining of the star, but there is- a sense 
of apartness, a majesty of loneliness about it. The roar 
of the ocean is grand, but it is pleasant sometimes to hear 
the gurgle of the running brooks among forest leaves, when 
11 inland far we be." And such a music is in the minor 
poems of Milton, but we have no familiar letters. 

8 



FEBRUARY IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 



I can scarcely imagine a more lovely day than this — 
the atmosphere clear, sweet, and mild, the sky bright and 
glorious, with no cloud to be seen, save here and there a 
white thread casting a speck of shadow on the sides of the 
distant declivities, and a robe of fleecy silver resting on the 
summits of the "Western Sierra. The sun is shining with 
the power of summer in New England, and the west wind 
plays across one's temples with the refreshing coolness of a 
breeze in May. It seemed a day, 

" able to drive 
AH sadness but despair." 

The Mediterranean enjoys its influences like a living intel- 
ligence, and reciprocates them into the atmosphere, steal- 
ing and giving beauty. Its waves play softly in the sun- 
light, and slowly and indolently swell and break upon the 
beach, with a musical liquid gurgle, most refreshing and 
delightful. A ride along the seaside towards Velez-Malaga 
such a morning as this, quickens all the animal spirits to 
an exhilarating sense of the happiness of existence in such a 
world of beauty. The song of the fishermen, and every 
movement of man, woman, and child, as they draw their 
nets to the shore, and are busy on its margin, seem tinged 
with the romantic coloring of its climate. The peasants, 
as you meet them, seem as if they breathed contentment 
from its loveliness. All the joyous influences of sea, and 
pir. ajnd sunshine, dron like the falling dew upon the 



FEBRUARY IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 171 

animal system, stealing over every nerve, and raising it 
with the most pure and healthful excitement. It is happi- 
ness to be ; and a man feels as if he could dance like a 
little child, from the mere instinctive impulse of delight. 

So sweet and enlivening are all the influences of man's 
earthly habitation upon his mortal frame, if he bears about 
a mind at peace with God. If the body be undiseased by 
sickness, or pleased and soothed with the grateful sensations 
of returning health, at such a season as this the mind is 
powerfully awakened to a sense of the goodness of God, 
and a delight in the feeling of his Omnipresence. The 
face of nature, in such an hour of uninterrupted, universal 
beauty and harmony, is to the soul a sweet image, though 
infinitely inadequate, of the Divine Loveliness. It leads, 
or certainly it ought to lead, the heart directly up to 
Heaven. 

" If such the sweetness of the streams, 
What must the fountain be ! 
Where saints and angels draw their bliss 
Immediately from Thee !" 

It were well if the mind could retain that habit of holy 
meditation, which such a scene begins to lead it into, and 
the heart that glow of gratitude, and that lively, quick 
perception of mercy, when the individual returns from the 
open contemplation of the Divine works into the world of 
human society. But how readily, amidst human dwellings 
and worldly employments, does the heart wander away 
both from nature and from God ! 

The fragrance of a field of sweet peas in blossom was 
delicious as I passed it — redolent of all images of vernal 
delight. Indeed, the winter in this region was over some 
weeks ago, and here, in the middle of February, the season 
when the cold is at its height of power in New England, 
an American experiences the climate of summer. A week 
or two since, the almond trees were all in blossom, and a 
novel and very beautiful scene it was. I cannot but esteem 



172 FEBRUARY IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 

the climate of Malaga as one of the finest in the world. 
It is doubtless the sweetest in all the region of the south 
of Spain, and that is considered superior to the climate of 
any other country on the Mediterranean, except, perhaps, 
a part of the south of Italy. A fortnight of cold weather 
and a fortnight of rain may be said to constitute the winter, 
and even that is of so mild a character, that we could 
scarcely compare it, without injustice, to any period be- 
tween the months of November and April in our own 
country. The air is dry and pure, the sky serene, the 
changes neither sudden nor difficult to be borne. The 
penetrating wind that is experienced sometimes in Decem- 
ber, after a long succession of dry weather, is trying while 
it lasts, and brings with it something like a catarrhal epi- 
demic ; but in general, the year round, the weather is 
equable and the climate salubrious. It combines, in truth, 
the purity and sparkling clearness of a mountain atmos- 
phere, with the refreshing wholesomeness of the sea-breezes. 
In the winter the surrounding hemisphere of mountains 
serves as a barrier against the sweeping north winds, and 
in the summer the heat of the land breezes is tempered and 
moistened by the air from the sea. Sudden changes of the 
weather, so trying to the constitution in our northern zone, 
are strangers to this climate, and so are the damps and 
fogs, and hanging, leaden drapery of clouds, that affect 
equally the mind and the body of an invalid, depressing the 
spirits in depriving the nerves of their elasticity. 

The evening air is almost as wholesome as that of the 
day, and the early morning is extremely pure and delicious. 
It is not possible to describe the beauty of the sunset after 
a clear day, and a soft west wind have thrown their influ- 
ences into the atmosphere. The extremity of the Mole by 
the Linterna, or light-house, is an admirable point of ob- 
servation, and a walk thither in the cool of the morning, or 
the glow of the setting sun, is very delightful. You are 
almost out at sea, and surrounded by the blue depths of the 



FEBRUARY IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 173 

Mediterranean on either side. You command a front view 
of the city, and the range of mountains in the west, behind 
which the sun is slowly sinking. As he levels his depart- 
ing rays across the wide plain, and over the city, against 
the spire of the Cathedral, and the battlements of the Gib- 
ral-Faro, and over the harbor, the shipping and the mole, it 
is a scene of surpassing loveliness. The vast plain between 
the city and the mountains is covered with a cloud or haze 
of light, out of which the range of mountains rises, with 
their base colored with the deepest indigo, while their sum- 
mits are bathed in the golden blaze, which the sun pours 
over all the western horizon. The twilight tints are beau- 
tifully rich and strange, changing continually ; and the 
extent of horizon from which the shafts of crimson and 
golden light, or bundles of arrowy rays in quivers, shoot up 
athwart the sky from the departing sun, includes almost 
the whole western hemisphere. The effect upon the outline 
of the sea is very rich. As the sun is setting, even the 
distant coast of Africa sometimes becomes distinctly visi- 
ble, and the ships, at the outermost line of the sea and 
sky, hang themselves like little sailing clouds, in the at- 
mosphere. 

The surprising clearness of the atmosphere brings distant 
objects near, and minutely distinct, and the intensity of the 
coloring, and yet the mellowness of every hue is as if heaven 
and earth were steeped in crimson. All this towards the 
west. On the other side the moon is silently commencing 
her reign, with two fair stars just below her ; and the coast, 
as it stretches away to the east, is lost from the eye in the 
dimness of evening. The Moorish mountain begins to look 
wild and supernatural as the shades gather around it, and 
towards that side the face almost gathers blackness, while 
towards the west you seem as if fronting the splendors of 
eternity. 

I am reminded in some respects so powerfully of Byron's 
description in the fourth canto of Childe Harold, and it is 



174 FEBRUARY IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 

in itself a description so true of the sunset as I now witness 
it, (though written in Italy,) that I cannot but quote a part 
of his stanzas. 

The moon is up, and yet it is not night. 
Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colors seems to be 
Melted to one vast iris of the west, 
Where the day joins the past eternity ; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest. 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 

With her o'er half the lovely heavens ; but still 

Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, 

Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar 

Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, 

From the rich sunset to the rising star, 

Their magical variety diffuse ; 

And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 

Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 

With a new color as it gasps away, 

The last still loveliest, till 't is gone — and all is gray. 

Combined with the beauty of this scene, you have, in 
returning from your walk, the picturesque cluster of ships 
in the harbor, with all the animating sights and sounds of 
the port — the ships, galleys, feluccas, and vessels of all na- 
tions, the sounds of the hammer, the odor of the tar, the 
evening hum of the mariners, the sweep of the oars, as the 
boats pass and re-pass between the quay and the shipping. 
The genius of Crabbe would find admirable subjects for his 
graphic pencil. If you are fond of the ocean, you may en- 
joy it here in all its aspects. In this respect Malaga is 
different from most cities, for the sea rolls in at its founda- 
tions, and a few steps will take you to the beach, or give 
you the view of the whole harbor, with all its animating 
movements. 



LOOKING UP THERE, AND DOWN HERE. 



The celebrated Matthew Wilkes was once in company 
with a young clergyman w T ho was appointed to preach in 
the chapel formerly occupied by Whitefield. Having to 
look into the Bible in the pulpit for some purpose connected 
with the services before the congregation were assembled, 
Mr. Wilkes discovered the young minister's notes between 
the leaves. " What ! (said he) notes, where Whitefield 
preached ? What ! are you going to read a sermon from 
Whitefield's pulpit ?" " Ah ! (said the minister) the place 
is large, and is a new one for me, and I tremble at the 
thought of coming to the people without some written prep- 
aration." " Ah, well, well," said Mr Wilkes, "it may be 
so ; but remember, (and here he looked up to heaven, at 
the same time laying his hand upon the manuscript sermon 
on the desk) remember, the more you look up there, the 
less you'll find it necessary to look down here." 

This was very striking. There is a great deal of heav- 
enly meaning contained in this sentence of Mr Wilkes. 
There is a great deal of instruction for every minister. 
" The more you look up there, the less you tail I have to look 
down hereP The more you look to God, the less will be 
your dependence on yourself, and on man. The more you 
look to God, the more independent you will be of yourself 
and of man. The more superior you will be to the fear of 
man, which bringeth a snare, and the more powerful you 
will be in yourself, by the grace of God within you. Look 



176 LOOKING UP THERE, AND DOWN HERE. 

aloft ! It is the only way to get safely down. Look aloft ! 
Whether you have notes before you, or thoughts within 
you, or both, it is the only way to make them available, 
the only way to give them power over your hearers, the 
only way to speak them as from God, the only way to 
preach with comfort and happiness to yourself, with power 
and benefit to your hearers. Look up to God ! It is the 
only way to make your hearers look thither also. If you 
see nothing but your manuscript, your hearers will not see 
much in that. And if you have not gotten your manu- 
script from God, your hearers will get little of God's thoughts 
from you. Your notes may have come from God's word, 
but if you yourself do not look up to God, the power of 
God's word will not be in them. A man needs as much 
help from God to preach a written sermon, as he does an 
extempore one ; nay, perhaps more ; for a fluent extempore 
speaker may preach a torrent of mere words with some 
warmth to the hearer, if there be a fervent manner, when, 
if the torrent had been confined to a manuscript, it would 
have proved a very cold shower, or a mere damp drizzle. 
There is, indeed, too much of this drizzle in preaching. 

Good thoughts in notes are apt to have more value, but 
they do not make so much noise, as light thoughts in specie. 
Your hearers themselves must be in the habit of going to 
the bank to prove your notes, and then they will find out 
their value. If you got them at the bank of heaven, your 
hearers will find that they are of more value than extempore 
silver. If you only made them yourself, they will be worth 
nothing at all. A handful of extempore six-pences, pro- 
cured at the mint, will be better than hundreds of pounds 
signed only by yourself on paper. But if you did get your 
notes at the bank, your hearers will know it, even while 
you are issuing them ; there being always an indefinable 
demonstration in the air and manner of the man who, as 
Matthew Wilkes says, " looks up there" that makes his 
hearers feel and say involuntarily, He got that note at the 



LOOKING UP THERE, AND DOWN HERE. 177 

bank ; it has the stamp of Heaven's chancery. But heavy 
notes need more feeling in their issue, in their delivery, than 
light extempore sixpences. You may make much jingle 
with the latter, and this will pass with many for fervor, but 
with the former, unless you have the fervor which is ob- 
tained only by " looking up there" you will make but 
little impression on others, and even the notes which you 
get from the word of God will make but little impression 
on yourself. 

The word of God needs the Spirit of God, and while the 
word of God may be studied in the letter, and preached in 
the letter, merely by u looking down here" the Spirit of 
God can be obtained only by " looking up there," It is 
only the preacher, who looks up there, that knows how to 
look down here aright. The same may be said of all Chris- 
tians, of hearers as well as preachers. Matthew Wilkes' 
word is as good for one as the other. The more you look 
to God, the less you will find it necessary to look to man. 
The more you look to God, the better you will know how 
to look to his word, and the more you will see of him in it. 
And as to notes in the pulpit, the more you are in the habit 
of looking up to God before you go to church, the more you 
will see of God in the preacher, and the more you will re- 
ceive from God through the preacher, if indeed he himself 
is more in the habit of looking up there, than down here. 
And if not, the hearer will know it. But whether the 
preacher looks up to God or not, it is none the less your 
duty to do so. And it ought to be remembered that the 
more you look up there, the more the preacher will look up 
there also. The way a church looks has a great influence 
on the way a minister looks. Wherefore, let all look up to 
God. 

8* 



RAKING WITH THE TEETH UPWARDS. 



We were amused with the account given by a sensible 
old farmer, of a minister of his acquaintance, who he 
thought preached rather too smoothly, with too little appli- 
cation to the conscience. " "Why," said he, "he seems to 
be a good man, but he will rake with the teeth upwards." 
Now this is very expressive ; there is much meaning in it. 
Raking with the teeth upwards is as bad as sowing upon 
fallow ground without breaking it up. Raking with the 
teeth upwards will never gather the hay. Raking with 
the teeth upwards, or harrowing in the same manner, will 
smooth over the field, but will neither rake in the seed, nor 
rake out the weeds. A preacher knows not how to do his 
work, who rakes with the teeth upwards. The teeth of 
the gospel are not set in this way, but point down, into the 
heart and the conscience. 

Men of the world, and men after it, do not rake with 
the teeth upwards, but downwards. Politicians often rake 
with the teeth upwards. Flatterers always do, but the 
work which they do is not raking, but smoothing and cov- 
ering over. Raking with the teeth upwards, in a preacher, 
is handling the word of God deceitfully. Raking with the 
teeth upwards is Satan's work ; ye shall not surely die. 
Paul raked the Corinthians with the teeth downw r ards, and 
made them both sore and sorry. They sorrowed to repent- 
ance, and in this Paul rejoiced, for the gospel rake in his 
hand had done its work effectually. 



RAKING WITH THE TEETH UPWARD. 179 

In the pursuit of riches, men rake with the teeth down- 
wards. There is Bunyan's Muckrake, for example. Men 
must rake with the teeth downwards, if they expect either 
to rake out principles or riches. Good principles, the 
things of sterling wisdom, are below the surface, and men 
must not only rake, but dig for them. 

The work of the gospel is not surface work, but deep 
work. The gospel husbandry needs to be carefully and 
prayerfully performed. If men go sowing their seed by 
the wayside without care, the fowls of the air will come 
and devour it. There may be whole baskets of good seed, 
but if it is thrown away in this manner, little good can 
come of it. Here and there a seed may take root, but the 
likelihood is otherwise. The good husbandman will stir 
the soil, if possible, and not throw his seed to the fowls. 

Our tract distributors are in one sense wayside sowers. 
But then, if they are faithful, they stir the soil, they use 
the rake with the teeth downwards. Whenever they can 
find a bit of soil that promises well, they soften and pre- 
pare it as much as possible, while dropping in the seed. 
Nor must the seed be withheld, because the soil is not 
promising, or because they are not permitted to use the 
rake or the harrow. Wherever soil is found, there the 
seed ought to be dropped ; and prayer itself, if nothing else 
can be used, may be both spade, rake, and harrow. And 
when the rain of the Spirit falls, the seed, though " buried 
long in dust," shall be quickened. 



HEART-LEARNING. 



It is a striking idiomatic phrase of our language in the 
lips of children, learning by heart. " I have got it all by 
heart, every word of it." Things got by heart are generally 
lasting. But there is a great difference between getting 
things by heart and getting them by rote. Some things 
may be learned by rote, others can be learned only by 
heart. Too much of our learning is mere rote-learning, 
too little of it is real heart-learning. Heart-learning is the 
best ; heart-learning stays by us. 

Heart-learning is the only true learning in the School of 
Christ. There is head-learning, book-learning, word-learn- 
ing, chapter-and- verse-learning, system-learning, but if it 
does not come to heart-learning, it is all useless. Heart- 
learning is heaven's learning. The angels know all things 
by heart, and the head-learning of saints on earth, in pro- 
portion as they get near to heaven, is all changed into heart- 
learning. Heart-learning is that celestial geometry, of which 
the Apostle speaks, the comprehension of the breadth and 
length, the height and depth in the love of Christ, which 
passeth knowledge. Heart-learning is the book of faith's 
natural philosophy, whereby we can understand that the 
worlds were framed by the word of God, and can hear their 
music, 

" Forever singing as they shine 
The hand that made us is Divine." 

Heart-learning is the origin of true lip-learning, for with 



HEART-LEARNING. 181 

the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and then with 
the mouth confession is made unto salvation, and the con- 
versation is with grace, seasoned with the salt of Heaven. 
But on the other hand, if any man seem to be religious and 
bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, that 
man's religion is vain. He has no heart-learning. 

True scriptural-learning and true theological-learning is 
heart-learning. Many things may be gotten by the head, 
and there are many head-theologians, very subtle and spec- 
ulative. But theology must be gotten by heart, or it is 
worthless. Head-learning may be other men's learning ; 
heart-learning is our own. Head-learning is second-hand 
and imitative ; heart-learning is original. Head-learning 
is dry study ; heart-learning is experience. Head-learning 
is often filled up without prayer ; heart-learning is gotten 
on one's knees, and with sighs and tears. 

The lessons which are learned by heart, without prayer, 
have to be unlearned, for they are mostly the lessons of our 
depravity. If not unlearned and repented of, they are les- 
sons of misery. The lessons of God's grace, learned by 
heart, stay by us to eternity, and bless us forever increas- 
ingly. The lessons of Divine grace, once learned, are never 
forgotten. Happy are they in whom the lessons of the 
word are lessons of grace, lessons gotten by heart. " Thy 
word have I hid in my heart, that I may not sin against 
thee." 



MORAL DAGUERREOTYPES. 



One is struck with amazement at the endless variety of 
expression fixed by the sun, and every instant there may 
be a new one. Now there is a moral in all this. It shows 
what a record there may be, when we little think of it, of 
what we do and what we are. 

The sun takes our likenesses by the process of the Da- 
guerreotype. No matter what the expression may be, 
there it is. There is neither concealment nor flattery. The 
sun takes exactly what he finds. If it be beauty or deform- 
ity, a noble emotion or a vile one, it is all the same to 
this impartial painter. He will not heighten the one, nor 
diminish the other, but brings out every feature, with 
every touch of character. All this without our interven- 
tion, at least without our will. There needs but to be 
given a face, and the sun will take it. 

And what if this process were going on, invisibly to us, 
through some medium interfused in all nature ? What if 
every play of emotion, every attitude, every design revealed 
in the countenance, every revelation, in fine, of the char- 
acter in the face and deportment, were thus unalterably 
taken down, to be reproduced before us ? What if every 
image of ourselves is kept, a copy of it, for the judgment ? 
Suppose that a man could have his past being thus laid 
before himself in a succession of impressions from childhood 
to manhood, and from manhood to old age. Would any 



MORAL DAGUERREOTYPES. 183 

one find any difficulty in deciphering the whole character 
from such marks ? 

Nay, sometimes a man would need to have only a single 
expression of countenance brought before him, a single atti- 
tude, in order to wake up conscience, and throw open the 
door to a whole gallery of evil doings and feelings in his 
, past existence. Perhaps such a series of Daguerreotypes 
may be among the materials in the book of judgment at 
the last day. With more accuracy than that with which 
the most perfect series of maps or views present the face 
and scenery of a country, men may find their whole past 
being reproduced before them. 



A GOOD OLD HYMN. 



DISTEMPER, FOLLY, AND MADNESS OF SIN. 

1. Sin, like a venomous disease, 

Infects our vital blood ; 
The only balm is sovereign grace, 
And the physician, God. 

2. Our beauty and our strength are fled, 

And we draw near to death; 
But Christ the Lord recalls the dead 
With his almighty breath. 

3. Madness, by nature, reigns within, 

The passions burn and rage ; 
Till God's own Son, with skill divine, 
The inward fire assuage. 

4. We lick the dust, we grasp the wind, 

And solid good despise ; 

Such is the folly of the mind, 

Till Jesus makes us wise. 

We care not who criticizes this hymn, or what authority 
pronounces concerning it, or what collection rejects it, or 
what music master stumbles at it. It is one of the best 
hymns in the language. It is truth expressed with great 
vigor, and in good taste. It takes strong hold of the mind, 
and answers to its deep convictions in regard to sin. Sin 
is a venomous disease, madness does reign within, we do 
lick the dust and grasp the wind, and nothing but divine 
grace can cure us. And we like to have such truth handled, 
even in lines of poetry, " without mittens." It is good to 
have the poet speak out strongly, even though he may lay 



DISTEMPER, FOLLY AND MADNESS OF SIN. 185 

himself open to captious objections. Sin is a venomous 
disease ; we are dust-eaters and wind -graspers. 

On the other hand, the opposite side of the picture is 
presented with equal truth and beauty. The Physician, 
the grace, the medicine, are brought to view. And this is 
done with so much skill in each of the stanzas, that the 
alternation is very striking, and would render this hymn 
peculiarly adapted to be sung by the choir in responses, or 
to be sung with such corresponding alternations in the 
expression of the music, as would render it exceedingly 
impressive. 

We must confess, that the taste which would reject such 
a hymn as this, is over-rigid for us. It contains in the 
original six stanzas. It is not necessary to print them all, 
nor to sing them all, though five of them are very good. 
But the four which we have given are admirable. And we 
do maintain that it is not the business of a hymn-composer, 
or a hymn-book maker to be consulting the organist or the 
tune-master, and inquiring of him how he shall regulate 
the expression of religious truth and feeling. A pretty 
business it is, indeed, if before the poet can choose the 
strong word which best conveys the strength of his idea or 
feeling, he is to run to the leader of the choir to ask how it 
will set in music ! And a still prettier business it is, if, 
when a hymn has been w T ritten, rugged and stern it may 
be, but deeply expressive, you are to have it ground down 
at the instigation of some sage professor of music, because, 
forsooth, it is not smooth enough — does not sing easy ! 

Let every man therein abide in the same calling where- 
with he was called, and let not Watts and Cowper be sent 
to dance attendance upon the fancies of modern musical 
composers, or systematic theologians, however excellent 
they may be. 



READINGS BY THE WAYSIDE 



AN EVENING'S CONVERSATION ON THE HUDSON. 



We were reading concerning Joseph of Arimathea, how 
he hewed a new sepulchre out of the rock, for himself. 
He little thought, when he was doing this, that he was pre- 
paring a place for the body of the Saviour. So those who 
are Christ's shall often have the privilege of laboring for 
him, even when they see no farther end than their own 
necessities or death. As all things shall work together for 
good to those who love God, so all things that they do shall 
work in the end for God's glory. Hewing tombs or build- 
ing houses, if the heart is right, they shall do all for Christ. 

But a great many men do good without wishing it, and 
then they have no more concern in it than the wires of the 
telegraph have with their transmitted tidings. The heart 
must be right. Angry men, that swear at God, do not 
mean to glorify him, and yet God makes even the wrath 
of man to praise him. A great many men do some good 
in their lives, without knowing it, without intending it, at 
random and by accident ; just as squirrels plant acorns 
for their own eating, which afterwards grow up into oaks. 
A great many of the oaks, which God takes to build the 
ships of his providence and the highway of the gospel, are 
thus planted and grown by the care of human selfishness. 



READINGS BY THE WAYSIDE. 187 

But only good men have a heart as well as a hand in ac- 
complishing God's purposes. A wretched thing it is for an 
immortal soul to be used in a great enterprise, and after- 
wards by the necessity of its own selfishness, to be thrown 
away. 

II. 

Again we were reading concerning the young man in 
the gospel, who came to Christ running. Men that expect 
to be saved by their works sometimes move quicker in 
what seems to be the right way than others, but the heart 
is not right. He came running, though his heart was filled 
with this world, because he expected to be saved by what 
he had done and would do. He came running, because he 
intended to have the gospel and the world together. But 
if he had had to give up the world and his great riches 
before beginning to come, he would have set out slowly. 
He would have walked first, and afterwards ran. It would 
have been difficult first, but easy afterwards. Now it 
seemed easy first, but was difficult afterwards. He had to 
go back, and get through the eye of the needle. But no 
man can either run through it, or jump through it, nor 
can there be a railroad through it, nor indeed can anything 
get through it but a broken heart, and that goes through 
by faith. 

III. 

In a ship at sea, and in a rapid talk on board a steamer, 
it does not take much time to go over a wide space 
of thought. Men may almost run through the omne sci- 
bile of theology and science in a certain way. It whiles 
away the time wonderfully to have an argument of inter- 
est, however glancingly it be pursued. The mind some- 
times just dots like a telegraph ; a few catch- words or 



188 AN EVENING'S CONVERSATION ON THE HUDSON. 

germs of thought, and it is off to another subject. I was 
sitting, with a Christian friend and brother, and something 
of inward sympathy or external object or event had led our 
thoughts impressively to the relation between the divine 
attributes and the human mind and character. I was 
deeply interested in my friend's train of thought, which, 
with the interspaces of my responses was very much as 
follows : — 

The holiness of God ! what a subject ! how little sense 
of it in men's minds, and how overpowering has the realiz- 
ation of it proved to the best of men ! The prophet Isaiah, 
for example. For ought we know, he was in very " com- 
fortable frames" of experience, but when he has seen the 
vision, and heard the cry, Holy, holy, holy, there is no more 
strength or courage in him. Wo is me, for I, a man of 
unclean lips, have seen the King, the Lord of hosts ! 

And is not this, in another way, the experience of every 
man, who realizes his own sinfulness, and has at the same 
time any proper sense of God's holiness ? I, so sinful a 
creature, says the Christian to himself, I, who find it so 
difficult to keep my heart fixed on God, so easy to wander 
from him, my soul so often cleaving to the dust, so labo- 
riously rising, if at all, towards heaven ; what should I do, 
how could I stand in the immediate presence of a holy 
God ? It seems impossible, that if I should die now, I 
could be admitted to behold him and enjoy him. 

Yes, the soul almost finds itself saying with Peter, when 
it thinks of these things, Depart from me, for I am a sinful 
man, O Lord ! And nothing but the grace of Christ, and 
a full faith in his blood, with the experience of its cleansing 
efficacy, can break down this separating wall, and enable 
the soul to come to God with the spirit of adoption ; for 
any of God's attributes are overwhelming ; in any of 
them a finite mind is lost, and a guilty mind is mise- 
rable. 

There is the simple eternity of God. There is no under- 



an evening's CONVERSATION ON THE HUDSON. 189 

standing it. A finite mind cannot understand it. And 
after millions of ages have rolled away, it will still be as 
incomprehensible as ever, to the highest intelligences. 
The mind pursues it sometimes to the verge of madness. 

And the incomprehensibility of God, and the nature of 
the human mind, show that nothing less than God can 
satisfy the soul, while at the same time the holiness of 
God would make the guilty soul miserable. 

That nothing less than God can satisfy the soul is plain 
on the slightest consideration of the matter. To all finite 
things and employments the mind will become accustomed, 
and would be so accustomed during the lapse of ages, as 
to be wearied of them all. Suppose the engineer of this 
boat were shut up to his employment for a thousand years. 
It would be torture to him, from the mere monotony. And 
if an immortal mind were the regent of a whole material 
universe, and were shut up to that, without God, there 
would come a time, in the course of eternity, when the 
monotony would be intolerable. If such a thing could be 
conceived, as that there were no God, immortality would 
go about the universe panting after God, dying for want 
of God. Nothing but God can satisfy the soul. 

But what, when to this you add the consideration of a 
holy God and a sinful soul ! Where in the universe can a 
soul that does not love God go, to get out of the way of 
him ? Everything in the universe will bring him to mind, 
even if consciousness and conscience did not. Everything 
will speak of him. The soul must love God, or in the 
bare want of that love, if there were no other hell, it 
would be miserable. It would be ever in the presence of 
an enemy. Just suppose that the builder of this boat had 
put his name and idea on every part of it, in all these 
ornaments, all these pictured panels, so that wherever the 
eye should turn, it would encounter nothing but what 
brought the name and character of the builder to view; 
and suppose that a mortal enemy of this builder should 



190 AN EVENING'S CONVERSATION ON THE HUDSON. 

have to take passage in this boat, should be shut up in it, 
where every one is speaking of the builder and praising 
his skill continually, and where the eye or the mind cannot 
rest without being reminded of him. He would wish for 
another boat. He could not endure it. So with the soul 
and God. An enemy of God would wish to be out of the 
universe. But there is no other boat, and God is every- 
where. 

The conversation then passed to the 7th of Romans, and 
the jejuneness and poverty of the method of interpretation, 
which would take an unconverted man as the subject of 
the experience at the close of it, "I find then a law in my 
mind," &c. " I delight in the law of God after the inward 
man," " O wretched man that I am," &c. " What I 
hate that I do," &c. "Where in the world ever yet was 
the unconverted sinner who hated sin ? What unconverted 
man ever hates sin, except by the mere experience of its 
evil consequences ? 

How exquisitely beautiful is the Christian Poet Cowper's 
Essay on Conversation ! What admirable sense, wit, 
humor, piety, delicacy of thought, refinement and depth of 
feeling ! 

But conversation, choose what theme we may, 
And chiefly when religion leads the way, 
Should flow like waters after summer showers, 
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers. 

How refreshing are such showers, and the brooks that 
gladden the earth, running in green pastures. A fountain 
in a park, set playing according to a city ordinance at cer- 
tain hours, is a thing to gaze at, and the children with 
their nurses run round it delighted. But a running brook 
among the woods and meadows, — that is the perfect image 
of a natural stream of talk, especially Christian talk, flow- 
ing from the abundance of a heart renewed by grace. The 
Poet Cowper would not sadden the social scene, but he 
regarded the proper medium between the wise man's sad- 



AN EVENING'S CONVERSATION ON THE HUDSON. 191 

ness and the fool's laughter as hard to hit, though his own 
native humor was always sparkling, even in the midst of 
gloom. How beautiful the conclusion of his Poem on this 
subject ! 

But though life's valley be a vale of tears, 

A brighter scene beyond that vale appears, 

Whose glory, with a light that never fades, 

Shoots between scattered rocks and opening shades, 

And while it shows the land the soul desires, 

The language of the land she seeks inspires. 

Thus touched, the tongue receives a sacred cure 

Of all that was absurd, profane, impure ; 

Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech 

Pursues the course that Truth and Nature teach ; 

No longer labors merely to produce 

The pomp of sound, or tinkle without use. 

Where'er it winds, the salutary stream, 

Sprightly and fresh, enriches every theme, 

While all the happy man possessed before, 

The gift of Nature, or the classic store, 

Is made subservient to the grand design 

For which Heaven formed the faculty divine. 

So, should an idiot, while at large he strays, 

Find the sweet lyre on which an artist plays, 

With rash and awkward force the chords he shakes, 

And grins with wonder at the jar he makes. 

But let the wise and well-instructed hand 

Once take the shell beneath his just command, 

In gentle sounds it seems as it complained 

Of the rude injuries it late sustained ; 

Till, tuned at length to some immortal song, 

It sounds Jehovah's name, and pours his praise along. 

Let your speech be ahuays with grace, an Apostle says, 
seasoned with salt. This does not exclude occasional 
mirthfulness, but commands that it be always pure and 
innocent. There may be great excellence in hearty laugh- 
ter, especially when it is irresistible. Laughing is said to 
be good for the health, and doubtless it is, if not immod- 
erate ; good for the health both of body and mind. 

Every good laugh, some old French writer remarked, 
adds one link to the chain of our existence. But there 
is a great difference between hearty laughter, and friv- 



192 an evening's CONVERSATION ON THE HUDSON. 

olous laughter ; and the laughter of fools is like the 
crackling of thorns under a pot ; a most pithy comparison. 
A man to hear the snapping of such fuel, would think 
there must be a great fire ; it would boil any pot in crea- 
tion ; but after all it is nothing but noise without heat, nor 
is anything more wearisome. Sensible laughter, on the 
other hand, is excellent in its place. 



PRAYER AND FASTING. 



This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. — 
What kind ? A kind of hard, inveterate devils, that get 
into the heart and stay there. They used of old to take 
the form of lunatics, and often cast men into the fire, and 
often into the water. But they have changed somewhat 
their mode of operation, and having become more refined 
and quiet, more cunning and less tangible, are far more 
difficult to be cast out. They know better how to keep 
concealed, and how to act without violence. They used to 
inhabit only the hearts of pagans, and men dead in tres- 
passes and sins, but since they have tried successfully the 
experiment of going into a heart empty and swept and gar- 
nished, and set up an establishment there, they often steal 
into the hearts of God's own people, yea, sometimes seven 
devils of them together, making no noise, but all so quietly 
and gradually, that the poor deceived heart does not even 
know their entrance. 

But when they have so got in, it is sad havoc that they 
make with a man's piety. They fill the heart with tombs 
and desert places, they cast out its warm affections, and 
introduce habits of coldness and conformity to this world. 
They go so far, oftentimes, as to make secret prayer and 
family prayer to become a mere form and a burthen, and 
the word of God a sealed, unattractive book. Sometimes 
for a season they get so completely the mastery, that there 
is nothing in the heart or the habits that can be called se- 
cret prayer at all. But when this is the case, then gen- 

9 



194 PRAYER AND FASTING, 

erally they are on the eve of some daring and riotous out- 
break. They will take possession of men thus secretly 
mastered, as if they were swine, and will make them run 
violently down the steep places of their passions into the 
sea and perish in the waters. And they who do not go 
thus outwardly lunatic are none the less to be pitied, so long 
as the devils stay secretly within them, and wander from 
room to room, eating up all the piety they can find, and 
destroying all the soul's spiritual power and comfort. 

This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. But 
a man who has had these devils a long time, gets entirely 
out of the habit of such prayer and fasting as are requisite 
to overcome them. They are like rats, that stay and thrive 
in houses where there is much feasting and good cheer. 
Where there is little prayer and fasting, they have all 
things to their own mind, and grow strong and multiply. 
Then it becomes more and more difficult for the man that 
entertains these devils to pray and fast; but yet/prayer 
and fasting become more and more necessary, if he would 
ever get back the command over himself, if he would have 
the Lord Jesus overcome and bind and cast out the devils, 
and the Holy Spirit enter and make the heart's chambers 
his own pure and peaceful abode. 

In all spiritual duties, when there is the greatest neces- 
sity for them by reason of the sad declining state of the 
heart, then they are the most tedious and difficult. It is 
so with fasting and prayer, when there are many devils. 
And sometimes the whole church gets into such a state 
that you might as easily move a mountain with a bodkin, as 
set it of a truth to fasting and prayer. When there has 
been a long period of worldliness, comfort and ease, when 
Ephraim in prosperity has got settled on his lees, it is a 
very difficult thing to disturb him. The mere appoint- 
ment of a day of fasting and prayer will not do it. The 
mere formal observance of a day of prayer and fasting will 
not do it. No, not though there be a good attendance on 



PRAYER AND FASTING. 195 

such a day, and good prayer-meetings attending it, and 
good Christians going without their dinners, and congrat- 
ulating themselves that there is once more a fast day in 
the church. Oh no, that will not do it. Many a man 
may go without his dinner to frighten the devils, but invite 
them all back again at sapper. Oh no, unless the fasting 
comes from the heart, and the heart w r eeps and prays in 
secret, there is nothing gained. Real fasting and prayer 
is hard work, when the evils in the heart have grown 
quietly and unperceived, and have lain undisturbed in a 
period of worldly conformity. 

Alas! a man has to buckle on his armor, and labor and 
tug, and strive, before he even finds himself in such a state 
that he can begin to pray and fast in earnest. Depend 
upon it, ye Christians who have been fasting and praying, 
because such a season has been appointed, that your work 
is but commenced in the observance of such a day. It is 
a season given you to start from, not a journey gained. It 
is a signal, at which you are to enter into your closet, and 
shut your door, and knock, and weep, and pray, day after 
day, day after day. Now, if you begin to do this in the 
observance of a set day with others, you are indeed doing 
a great work. You have adopted a fast, such as God 
chooses, you are engaged in a work which the Saviour 
loves to see, and if you persevere, the devils will give way 
before you, and the Holy Spirit will fill your heart with 
power, and peace, and joy. But doubtless you must do 
this as an individual, and not in reliance upon church 
meetings. You must do it for your own heart, and not 
merely because the church needs reviving. The church 
does need reviving, but remember, it is because you need 
reviving. 



FIXTURES OF CHARACTER. 



There is in life the period of seeds, and the period of 
results or harvests. The period of seeds is the germinating 
period. That which the soul receives deep into itself in 
that period, grows up, and is developed, as a part of itself, 
and forms the character at the period of harvest. But if 
the seed-period be neglected or abused, and then, at the 
period of harvest, or what ought to be that period, the 
period of results, you attempt the recurrence of a seed- 
period, it will be a failure ; the seed does not germinate, 
but rots, or if it germinate, it dies without fruit, without 
being a fixture in the character. Almost everything that 
falls into the ground but just goes to the nourishment and 
strengthening of that which had got its fixture and its 
growth before ; or if the seed scattered seem to take root, 
it is but a feeble, thin, stunted underbrush, around the 
trunks and beneath the shadow of the old great trees. 
After those fixtures rise to a certain height and age, they 
despotize over everything else in the character. We go on, 
indeed, sowing seed all through life, and each successive 
period of life is in a most impressive reality a period of pro- 
bation and of seeds for the next period ; because, what we 
were and did yesterday, is continually coming out in con- 
sequences to-day ; but the grand seed period, the period of 
the oaks that build the ships in which our fortunes are 
embarked for eternity, the period of all the commanding 
fixtures and features of character, is ordinarily but one, 
and that one ordinarily early. 



FIXTURES OF CHARACTER. 197 

That early seed-period, and the germinating and grow- 
ing period that follows, is imaginative, romantic, full of 
rich powers and tendencies. Nettles will grow, with grand 
spreading flowers, to the size of a forest, if you sow those ; 
rich fruits and magnificent trees will grow, if you sow 
those. The germinating, springing power, in our immortal 
nature, is in one sense omnipotent ; it will be exercised, if 
not for good, then for evil, and no created agency can 
restrain it ; it works for eternity, and with an intensity, 
with which perhaps only an immortal nature could work. 
The roots of our earliest habits twine themselves all about 
our immortality, and the trunk of character, strengthened 
by such roots, is immovable, and the branches spread them- 
selves out over all our being. Whatever, during the period 
of susceptibility and growing power, is implanted, takes 
strong hold, and if evil, becomes so omnipotent that God 
only can cut it away, and if good, it is almost as hard to be 
eradicated when once firmly set, but grows on even against 
the tendencies of a deformed nature. So prodigiously, 
intensely energetic, is the susceptible period and growing 
power of our being. While it lasts, almost anything can 
be done with it ; but by and by the susceptible and grow- 
ing power is past ; past, as to new things, because almost 
every principle has been in turn tried, and the soul is fully 
engaged with what it has settled down upon, and the 
power of the being works portentously in the increase of 
that, but takes hold of nothing new. 

Our blessed Lord took young men for his Apostles. He 
could make anything out of them then ; it was the sug- 
gestive period, the power-period in the formation of char- 
acter. 

We say the suggestive period. We mean not the pe- 
riod in which the mind itself makes, puts forth, or proposes 
suggestions, but the period in which suggestions are enthu- 
siastically, romantically, eagerly entertained, and become 
the source of other suggestions. We use the expression, 



198 FIXTURES OF CHARACTER. 

a suggestive book. It means a book, that to a thoughtful 
mind touches a great many springs of thought and feeling, 
pronounces the open sesame, to a great many doors in the 
rocky but gem-enclosing caverns of the soul ; a book that 
sets the mind upon tracks of investigation, and calls up 
shadows of prophetic revelation before it, making it ear- 
nestly inquisitive ; a book that like a flash of lighting in a 
dark summer's night reveals for the moment a whole hori- 
zon. Now such a book ordinarily affects a young mind 
and an old one in a very different manner. In a young 
mind it meets a growing, germinating power, an enthu- 
siastic, imaginative, impressible, impulsive tendency, and 
carries the mind onward to results. In an old mind it stops 
at the threshold where you have laid it ; it enters not into 
the activity of the being. Old men may make suggestions, 
but cannot so easily receive them. If, during their sug- 
gestive period, they received and acted upon good, rich, no- 
ble, powerful suggestions, under which magnificent habits 
of character and life were formed, then, when their own 
susceptibility to impressions, new impressions of thought 
and feeling, their germinating period, is gone, they will still 
be able to communicate power, to electrify others ; their 
sowing time in the hearts and minds of others shall never 
be gone, if their own receiving time and growing time 
from others was rightly improved. Hence the Apostle John 
could touch the keys of revelation when he was old, could 
pour the light of truth divine upon the minds of others, 
even when he had received all that he ever would or could 
receive from others. Hence Dr. Payson, when dropping his 
mantle of mortality, could throw the mantle of his piety, 
and the flame of his rejoicing soul upon the watchers 
around him, long after he had ceased to receive any new 
suggestions or excitements from the things of earth, or the 
discipline of heaven. 

Now this suggestive period seems with some to be longer, 
and with some shorter, just as the growing and developing 



FIXTURES OP CHARACTER. 199 

period is various with different individuals. But it seems 
to be a limited period with all. That is, there is a period 
of receptivity and growth, looking to a period of bestow- 
ment and results, of harvest and of fruits. The period of 
receptivity and growth stops for the most part where the 
period of harvests and of fruits is expected to begin, or ought 
to begin. Just so, there is the period of increase and of 
receptivity in the human life, and then the period of decline 
and of spending. The energies of this mortal frame are 
first gathered and compacted, then thrown off in prepara- 
tion for the grave. First in our being is the period of 
Genesis, then Law, then Prophecy, then Fulfilment and 
Revelation of eternal results. Out of the^iature of the 
law which we have made our own, working in us, whether 
good or evil, in the period of receptivity, germination, and 
growth, springs the prediction of the future, never mis- 
taken, never annulled. 



SIMPLICITY. 



Simplicity is a thing that cannot be learned. It must 
come either from the nature of nature, or the nature of 
grace ; if it be copied, it ceases to be simplicity, and be- 
comes affectation. But it is absolutely essential to the 
highest excellence of character; all is but varnish without 
it. Faith in God is child-like simplicity, parent of strength. 
Without it, all knowledge is vain; the light of the mere 
understanding, to use the strong image of the Poet Cow- 
per, is only like a candle in a scull. With the same 
deep meaning, Mr. Coleridge once said that all products of 
the mere reflective faculties partake of death. 

Child-like simplicity is clear-sighted, and sees into the 
soul of things ; it sees also the soul of beauty in little 
things. Simplicity goes hand in hand with humility, and 
they two have great insight and great enjoyment together. 
Pride and self-complacency draw a veil before insight, and 
then the man goes about well-nigh blindfolded, yet think- 
ing that he sees all things. Such men often overlook 

CD O 

things, because they are so plain before them, and for the 
very reason of their simplicity and easiness to be under- 
stood. Men are always looking for some great thing. 
Tell a proud man to go into the fields and bring you home 
the sweetest and most beautiful flower he can find, and 
probably he will go with his head high up in the air, hunt- 
ing after the Magnolia. He may tread upon five thousand 
violets by the way, and never see them, never be conscious 
that precisely the most beautiful and the sweetest flower is 
that he is trampling under foot ; and when he returns, if you 
ask him if he saw any violets, very likely he will say no. 



PART THIRD. 



CRITICAL AND SPECULATIVE. 



The fears, the hopes, the remembrances, the anticipations, 
the inward and outward experience, the belief and the faith 
of a Christian, form of themselves a philosophy and a sum 
of knowledge, which a life spent in the grove of Academus, 
or the painted Porch, could not have attained or collected. 

Aids to Reflection. 



CHARACTERISTICS 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER* 



I am called to speak of the memory of a Christian Phi- 
losopher. It is a noble title, nobly won, though so few in 
our fallen world have deserved it. I do not feel that I am 
called to eulogize, but to set before you some among many 
virtues of a man, whom it seemed to us as if we could ill 
spare, out of a class from which, in this country, the loss 
of such an one must be long and painfully felt, because, as 
yet our institutions have produced, and God's mercy has 
granted, so few ; and he especially seemed to have just 
ripened for effort and usefulness. 

We do not, to-day, think of him as a spirit in heaven, 
though he is there ; still less do we think of him in the 
grave, where " the shell of the flown bird has mouldered ;" 
but we think of him as here ; we seem to feel his presence 
in the spot where so many have listened to his instructions, 
and still are ruled by his spirit from its urn ; these scenes, 
so familiar to him living, bring him into the midst of us 
this day, just as he was on earth, while absorbed in those 
profound meditations in which he delighted. 

I have said that I do not feel that I am called to eulogize, 

* A Discourse commemorative of the virtues and attainments of Rev. James 
Marsh, D.D., late President, and Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy 
in the University of Vermont ; delivered before the Alumni of the University, 
at their Annual Meeting, in August, 1843, and published at their request. 



204 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

for this is needless, and the occasion demands much more ; 
so does the memory of our departed instructor and friend. 
You will bear with me then, if now, not confining myself 
to the review of Dr. Marsh's personal and mental excellen- 
cies, I dwell, for a little space, upon some of the requisites 
essential to the character of a Christian philosopher. A 
Christian Philosopher ! The highest qualities that can 
adorn humanity, must go to make up such a character ; 
and yet, such a being, we say it without hesitation, and not 
in the spirit of eulogy, but of justice, was Dr. Marsh. And 
in dwelling upon these qualities of mind and opinion as 
well as of the heart, while I shall speak with particular 
reference to Dr. Marsh, I shall also speak as I should have 
been glad to do in his own presence, without any such ref- 
erence suggested ; although, as I passed along in my enu- 
meration of particulars, every mind might say within itself 
of this excellence Dr. Marsh was an example. 

I. I begin, then, this enumeration, with the very obvious 
and general truth, that no man can be a Christian philoso- 
pher, without being himself, by personal union with Christ, 
through the regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit, in- 
dividually, in the New Testament sense, and not by nomi- 
nal courtesy, a Christian. Philosophy itself needs regene- 
rating ; and it is not probable that any but a true and deep 
Christian will ever do much to regenerate it. 

We might suggest many reasons. Humility is requi- 
site ; but the unregenerate mind is full of pride. In the 
region of the Reason and the Understanding, unregenerate 
minds of superior acuteness may speculate well, may deal 
skilfully with abstractions, and marshal the shadows of the 
cave ; but when we come to the province of conscience, the 
will, and the affections, then comes in the great fact of 
human depravity, with lights and shades, which the unre- 
generate mind either does not, or will not see, or is unwill- 
ing to acknowledge and follow. Instead of taking their 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 205 

stand-point in Christianity, and reasoning towards philoso- 
phy, most men have taken their stand-point in philosophy, 
and reasoned towards Christianity. Hence the world has 
been greatly plagued with a philosophical Christianity, but 
a Christian philosophy scarcely, as yet, exists. Christianity 
has been baptized in philosophy, instead of philosophy in 
Christianity ; or if philosophy has been baptized, it has been 
merely christened, not christianized ; it has received the 
figment of a baptismal regeneration, rather than the reality 
of a new celestial birth. A so-called philosophical Chris- 
tianity may be received from the hands of rationalists and 
deists ; a Christian philosophy can be received only from a 
Christian mind. 

The remark of Clemens Alexandrinus concerning the 
heretical philosophers of his day, has been too true of phil- 
osophic names in every age ; that they were far more anx- 
ious to appear to be philosophers, than really and truly to 
philosophize ; more desirous to gain the reputation of phi- 
losophy, than the reality. Inani ergo sapientice opinione 
elati, perpetuo litigant, aperte ostendentes se magis curare 
ut videantur philosophic quam ut philosophantur. In 
such hands a philosophical Christianity has proved as ineffi- 
cient for men's moral reformation, as it has been erroneous 
both in philosophy and Christianity. The body of philoso- 
phers, it is quaintly but truly remarked by Thomas Haly- 
burton ; and the remark includes not only those whom he 
had in his eye in his own day, but many who have flour- 
ished since ; " the body of philosophers are indeed like weak 
watermen on a strong stream ; they look one way but are 
carried another. Though they pretend they aim at the 
ruining of vice, yet really they do it no hurt, save that they 
speak against it. A few of the best of them, being ashamed 
to be found among the rest, (swimming, or rather carried 
down the stream on the surface, that is, in open vice,) have 
dived to the bottom, but really make as much way under 
water as the others above." 



206 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

In the earliest ages of the Church, there was such a pre- 
tended philosophical Christianity. Perhaps, indeed, there 
never was a period in the world's history, when there pre- 
vailed such an extraordinary enthusiasm in the pursuit of 
philosophy, as in the age of the apostles. And everywhere 
it was philosophy falsely so called. There never was a pe- 
riod in which so many different sects were contending 
together on one and the same arena. The world was a 
hubbub of philosophers ; everything intellectual, everything 
moral, everything religious, took that turn. There was 
very little light, and what there was, was fast becoming 
darkness. The culminating point of light in the world's 
intellect, apart from revelation, had probably been reached 
in Plato, and every step after him was a retrograde one. 
Every new mixture in the cauldron of Alexandrian Eclec- 
ticism produced only a thicker scum of error. Every turn 
in the wild medley of philosophic opinions only made con- 
fusion worse confounded. Yet philosophy was the fashion; 
it was learning, it was education, it was refinement, it was 
yviboig, the knowledge of God and of creation, of good and 
evil, and every religionist must be a philosopher. 

Now it is not possible that there should be a philosophical 
Christianity for the mind, till there is a New Testament 
Christianity for the affections ; the first can have no place 
in the mind till the last is established in the heart. And 
herein is one reason doubtless to be found, for the entire ab- 
sence of philosophical speculation from the New Testament 
itself, and for the constant warnings of the Apostles against 
such speculation. It was not merely because so great a 
portion of the so-called philosophical speculation that pre- 
vailed at that time was utterly false, but because the 
world's mind was not prepared even for a true philosophy, 
and could not be, until it was imbued with a true religion. 

It was into the midst of that agitated chaos of society, 
that philosophical fermentation of the world's mind of which 
we have spoken, that the first disciples of Christ were thrown, 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 207 

to begin their spiritual conflict. We may find in the state 
of things around them, reason enough why illiterate men, 
so called, were chosen ; if any had been taken from the 
schools, a constant miracle must have been in exercise all 
along the course of inspiration, to preserve them from per- 
petually mingling the fanaticism and the folly of philosophic 
speculation with the theory and truth of Christianity. We 
may say, indeed, that there was such an exercise, otherwise 
we could have had no pure unmingled inspiration. Amidst 
these strong tendencies, with not only the Greeks, but the 
whole world, agape after wisdom, the disciples were set 
down simply to preach the gospel. It was a miracle that 
they preached it, that they did not instantly, on the death 
of Christ, set up a school of philosophy. But there they 
stood, simple disciples of an atoning Saviour, and preached 
the Cross, knowing nothing but that, and determined to 
know nothing among men save Christ and him crucified. 
Thus they stood through one generation at least, simple 
preachers and not philosophers, and so the doctrines of 
Christianity were fairly and fully excogitated, put before 
the world in freshness and simplicity. It was a wonderful 
spectacle, a sublime sight, this light amidst darkness, this 
simplicity amidst error, this order amidst confusion, these 
twelve men going about like little children, and talking 
truth as simple as the daylight, as blessed and as easy to 
be understood, amid such a hubbub of pretensions and 
noises, such universal distortion of mind, such admiration 
and worship of philosophic darkness. They were faithful 
to the Cross, and so the canon of the New Testament was 
fixed, and the truths of the Cross were fully and eternally 
revealed, without mixture or sanction of human error. 
The Orb of Light was hung up, whatever error darkened 
men's horizon beneath it. 

But in the multitude those pagan, philosophic, specula- 
tive tendencies remained, and Christianity had to meet 
them ; and some minds were speedily brought into her 



208 CHARACTERISTICS OF 



bosom deeply tinctured with them, and soon many were 
beguiled from the simplicity of Christ. Heresy entered 
with philosophy. Learned converts from paganism brought 
with them from their schools the habit of subtle speculation. 
Gnostic, Cabbalistic, Neoplatonic allegory began to be in 
fashion ; professedly Christian teachers contended with un- 
baptized pagans for the palm of philosophy ; that is, they 
claimed it for Christianity as a thing to be desired, and the 
Christian fathers sought to maintain a philosophic reputa- 
tion. The early Christian writers themselves seem in- 
deed to have retired backward from the very foot of the 
Cross, from the very blaze of inspiration, into the darkness 
of pagan philosophy. To step out from the New Testa- 
ment into the writings of the fathers, is to step from a 
region of light, order, certainty and beauty, into a region 
of dim, disastrous twilight, where, as the shades of evening 
gather, the forms of superstition thicken, and the common 
sense and the simple spiritual sense, so rich and full in the 
pages of the New Testament, almost cease from existence. 
The forms of divine truth, that is, of truth revealed through 
the medium of the Cross, are dim and indistinct. In proof 
of this, let any one look through the writings of the fathers, 
to trace the great doctrine of justification by faith, so early 
lost, and at length so profoundly lost in the Romish sys- 
tem, and so late discovered in the glorious and blessed 
Reformation, after a thousand years. Let any sound- 
minded Christian take up any work of any Christian father, 
the most evangelical, and compare it with any practical or 
speculative treatise of Baxter, Howe, Leighton, or other 
modern Christian writers, and he will be sensible of the 
vast inferiority of the first to these last ages of Christian- 
ity, in the knowledge and possession of the truth and spirit 
of the Scriptures. There is, perhaps, quite as strong a 
contrast between the Christian writers of the seventeenth 
century, and the early Christian doctors, as that depicted 
with so much power and beauty by Mr. Taylor, between 






THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 209 

the books of the Jewish prophets, and those of the Christian 
fathers after the apostolic age. " It must be acknowledged," 
he observes, " that the writers of the ancient dispensation 
were such as those should be, who were looking onward 
towards the bright day of gospel splendor ; while the early- 
Christian doctors were just such as one might well expect 
to find those, who were looking onward towards that deep 
night of superstition, which covered Europe during the 
middle ages. The dawn is seen to be gleaming upon the 
foreheads of the one class of writers ; while a sullen gloom 
overshadows the brows of the other." 

If, now, the history of Christianity be for ages only a 
history of its corruptions, the history of philosophy for the 
same period must be at best but a history of its mistakes. 
Accordingly, much of the history of philosophy must be 
occupied with three great sources of error ; — a neglect of 
that which seems to be known, but is not ; a vain pursuit 
of that which cannot be known ; a proud endeavor to re- 
duce that which is supernaturally revealed, to the level of 
what is within the compass of our faculties. It was not 
designed that Christianity should make the world philo- 
sophical, till it had made it Christian. But the history of 
the scholastic and middle ages show the world striving 
after philosophy, when it has not even become imbued with 
the elements of Christianity. The one is impossible with- 
out the other ; and the consequence is the occupying the 
domain of philosophy with inane and useless, though subtle 
questions. Accordingly, a great reformation in philosophy 
commenced with the reformation in religion ; and it may 
be safely predicted that just in proportion as the world 
grows in the knowledge and love of God practically, the 
human mind will become known to itself, and all knowledge 
will advance towards that unity, which we know to be 
possible only in the union of the mind, the will, the affec- 
tions with Christ in God. 



210 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

II. Now, passing from this general head, I shall mention, 
as a second fundamental requisite in the character of a 
Christian philosopher, the habit of self-discipline, including 
especially that of self-examination. Here Dr. Marsh was 
remarkable for his patience, severity, and excellence. The 
habits of his mind were meditative and profound; the 
habits of his piety being equally so, he was a rare example 
of the union of severe intellectual and spiritual discipline- 
His tendency in meditation was more strongly subjective 
than objective, more to thoughts than things, more to 
motives than actions ; this tendency, we may see plainly, 
helped and forwarded his communion with God and him- 
self ; and the habit of spiritual self-examination as a Chris- 
tian duty, aided the habit of intellectual self-examination 
as a philosophical business and study. As a sincere Chris- 
tian, exercising himself herein always to maintain a con- 
science void of offence towards men and towards God, his 
habits of self-examination, both intellectual and spiritual, 
were fearless and impartial. It is a great thing not to be 
afraid of self-examination. 

On this subject, I often think of Dr. Donne's profound 
and condensed stanza : 

But we know ourselves least ; mere outward shows 

Our minds so store, 
That our souls, no more than our eyes, disclose 
But form and color. Only he who knows 

Himself, knows more. 

Some men train their minds well, look at abstractions 
sharply, accustom themselves to subtle distinctions, and to 
a busy, patient, intellectual self-examination. But they 
neglect the moral and spiritual examination of their being, 
as they have neglected from youth up habitually its per- 
sonal spiritual cultivation. No such man is fitted to be a 
philosopher. Here is great distortion of the being ; it has 
all grown on one side. Here are great intellectual excres- 
cences, but not the symmetry and beauty, the truth and 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 211 

certainty, of intellectual life. Here are abstractions, but 
not realities. And as to all that portion of truth in God 
and in ourselves, which lies over against the part of our 
being so neglected, the view of it and the conception of 
it in the mind of such a philosopher must inevitably be 
erroneous ; and it has so many practical connections and 
consequences, that the effect of such error spreads even into 
those intellectual abstractions, in which such minds think 
they are the subtle masters of certainty. 

Other men train their hearts better, but do not accustom 
themselves to habits of patient abstract thought, nor to the 
examination of their own intellectual being and processes. 
They take for granted what other men say ; they read 
systems ; their philosophical studies are not their own, but 
a blind pursuit in the path of others, a dependent following 
on in the train even of minds that have known nothing of 
Christianity practically, but have merely wandered in the 
labyrinths of intellectual subtleties, and therefore cannot 
possibly be our guides to a Christian philosophy. Such, 
for the most part, have been our philosophical writers. 
There has been such a divorce from the Christianizing, not 
to say humanizing, affections, in their writings, that the 
generalizing mind of Burke found occasion to make the 
remark that nothing can be conceived more hard than the 
heart of a thorough-bred metaphysician. These minds 
have been the tenants of Goethe's circle, and still are. " I 
tell you, a fellow that speculates, is like a brute driven in 
a circle on a barren heath, by an evil spirit, whilst fair 
green meadow lies everywhere around." Such is specula- 
tion apart from Christianity. Lord Bacon has written 
some pregnant sentences, as to the corrosive influences of 
knowledge without love. It is hardly possible that any 
great reformation in philosophy can come from such sources ; 
nor is it such minds that can be safely followed — minds 
divorced from hearts, minds neglectful of spiritual self- 
examination, and hearts unacquainted with themselves. 



212 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

There is a great want of self-examination. It is in our 
very nature ; I mean our guilty nature, for a perfectly holy 
being could not find the work of self-examination difficult. 
Our habits are those of inward neglect. And not only so, 
but some men's habits of opinion, the cast of their religious 
system, are so contrary to truth, subjective as well as re- 
vealed, that they dare not go into thorough self-examina- 
tion either morally or intellectually. If they should, they 
would be sure to strike upon some of those great reefs of 
thought and consciousness buried in the ocean of man's 
being, and their system must suffer shipwreck, especially 
if it be built upon the assumed purity of man, and the 
rejection of a divine atoning Mediator. A man who is 
afraid of God, of his just and holy character as revealed in 
his word, and who is prejudiced against a system of truth 
which has a severe side towards himself on account of his 
depraved nature, is not the being to become a philosopher, 
or to examine his own mind in an impartial, honest, scru- 
tinizing manner. Hence there lies against the investiga- 
tions of most of the great minds that have been the mon- 
archs of abstraction an objection, an antecedent probability, 
that as they are wrong towards God practically, they can- 
not be right towards man intellectually; their practical 
errors will produce errors even in intellectual abstractions. 
They are unsafe guides, even in a philosophy of nature. 
There is a concealed magnet near such a mind's compass, 
that in its investigations turns the needle out of its proper 
direction. The witnesses are interested. It has been said 
by Mr. Coleridge, that " the chameleon darkens in the 
shade of him who bends over it to ascertain its colors." 
But what if there be a moral hue in the observer, reflected 
upon the thing observed, the quality of the subject trans- 
ferred to the object ? 

What we need is the union of habits of intellectual ab- 
straction with spiritual truth, with devout feeling. With 
us there is perhaps more of the devout feeling, but less of 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 213 

the patient intellectual discipline. But this is absolutely- 
necessary for the mental philosopher. Discipline of the 
mind is needed, more than most men are willing to undergo ; 
more than most, even of our students, are accustomed to. 
For students in general are students of external books and 
things, and not of the constitution and movements of their 
own minds. They pursue paths that have been traced out 
for them ; they do not enter the forest with axe in hand, to 
cut down the underbrush and make paths for themselves to 
new points, or their own paths to old points ; they travel 
the beaten road. Now it is a truth that paths long trav- 
elled not only lose the interest, which by novelty they once 
possessed, but they even lose that power over the mind, 
which the things of intrinsic value and curiosity that lie 
along in them deserve to exercise. In the mind's investi- 
gations, an ell of one's own is worth a mile of another's. 
Intellectual regions become as hacknied, as infested with 
cicerones, as crusted over with custom, as the regions of 
fashionable travel. Guide-books and hand-books become 
so familiar, and so insufferably minute, that the possibility 
of a fresh discovery is anticipated, and the genial excite- 
ment of the mind, even by surprising truth, is rendered 
very difficult. 

Truth, Democritus said, was a deep well; it is a deep 
sea, that requires experienced and powerful divers, divers 
that can hold their breath long, or the pearls that lie at the 
bottom will not be brought up. Many have gone out of 
their depth, many have lost their breath, many have been 
taken by devious under-currents, and carried far from the 
point they have been diving at. By and by their bodies 
rise and float, here and there upon the surface. They are 
cast up upon the shores, and other phlilosophers devoutly 
bury them. A name is put upon their grave-stones, and the 
directions are marked, in which they are supposed to have 
wandered. Men seem perfectly aware of these under-cur- 
rents in the case of others, but yet they are perpetually 



214 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

diving into the same, and losing their way, and in their 
turn dying for want of breath. "Or," says Halyburton, 
in his sometimes quaint way, "trying to fetch up the truth 
without diving for it, but with a line too short, they fetch 
up some weeds that are nourished by their nearness to the 
waters, and please themselves with those." Yes ! It must 
be confessed, there is a great deal of the sea-weed of phi- 
losophy brought up instead of shells and pearls ; there are 
regions, however, where this sort of weed may make a 
very good compost for the production of better things in 
the sandy places on one's intellectual premises. 

III. Perhaps it is of sufficient importance to mention, as 
a third characteristic of a Christian Philosopher, that he 
will take his whole being with him. He must neither 
leave his Christianity behind, when he goes into his philos- 
ophy, nor his philosophy behind, when he goes into his 
Christianity ; if he does either, this proves there is a defect ; 
for true Christianity and true philosophy are the same, and 
a man's being, the state of his existence, under one influ- 
ence, cannot contradict the state of his existence under the 
other. If he cannot take his whole being with him, whether 
on the one side or the other, he is wrong. 

Besides this, there are idiosyncrasies to be guarded 
against. Some men's natural tendency, their besetting 
intellectual sin, is to look at things out of themselves, at 
external relations merely, at the objective instead of the 
subjective ; other some tend to the opposite extreme, and 
are so occupied with their subjective wants and tendencies, 
that they see almost nothing else. The first extreme is the 
greatest evil, doubtless ; the last likewise, if half the great 
body of truth be neglected, will lead to partial and incor- 
rect views. 

Dr. Marsh's philosophical investigations show, that while 
his own tendencies were subjective, and fitted him emi- 
nently for patient and profound meditation, he was not less 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 215 

careful in external observation, calling in science to his aid 
and making the objective and the subjective reflect, reveal 
and minister to each other. Minds whose tendencies are 
exclusively or chiefly to external observation, to the pheno- 
menal out of themselves, and who yield to those tendencies, 
can have no true conception of a spiritual philosophy. They 
are neither fitted to understand nor to criticize such a sys- 
tem; what they themselves do not understand, because 
half their own being has been neglected, they deem in itself 
unintelligible ; what is beyond their own experience, or 
rather, what has escaped their own notice of their own ex- 
perience, they set down as mysticism. Some remarks of 
Mr. Coleridge are strikingly in point. " A system," says 
he in his Biographia Literaria, " the first principle of which 
it is to render the mind intuitive of the spiritual in man, 
(i. e. of that which lies on the other side of our natural con- 
sciousness,) must needs have a great obscurity for those who 
have never disciplined and strengthened this ulterior con- 
sciousness. It must, in truth, be a land of darkness, a per- 
fect anti-Goshen, for men, to whom the noblest treasures 
of their being are reported only through the imperfect trans- 
lation of lifeless and sightless notions ; perhaps in great 
part through words which are but the shadows of notions ; 
even as the notional understanding itself is but the shad- 
owy abstraction of living and actual truth. On the imme- 
diate, which dwells in every man, and on the original intu- 
ition, or affirmation of it, (which is likewise in every man, 
but does not in every man rise into consciousness) all the 
certainty of our knowledge depends ; and this becomes in- 
telligible to no man by the ministry of mere words from 
without." 

The greatest evil in philosophy is that divorce of the 
heart from the head, of which we have already spoken, from 
which Dr. Marsh's deep piety, if nothing else, would have 
preserved him, and concerning which, though at the risk of 
some appearance of repetition under our present head, I shall 



216 



CHARACTERISTICS OF 



here add something more. Dr. Marsh once quoted a sen- 
tence from Lactantius, containing the whole of this evil. 
" Naturam hominis hanc Deus ipse voluit, ut duarum re- 
rum cupidus et appetens esset, religionis et sapientice. Sed 
homines ideo falluntur, quod aut religionem suscipiunt 
omissa sapientia, aut sapientice soli student, omissa reli- 
gione, cum alterum sine altero esse non possit verumP 
This is a great truth. God constituted us to seek religion 
and wisdom together. But men go to extremes ; they 
either seek religion without wisdom, or they seek wisdom 
without religion ; whereas, the one without the other, can- 
not possibly be true. 

Mr. Coleridge's experience, when he met, among the buy- 
ers, and sellers, and money-changers in the temple of intel- 
lectual abstractions in Germany, some who came to wor- 
ship with the heart, is deeply interesting and instructive. 
Speaking of the waitings of Fox and Behmen, he observes 
that they acted in no slight degree to prevent his mind from 
being imprisoned within the outline of any single dogmatic 
system. " They contributed to keep alive the heart in the 
head; gave me indistinct, yet stirring and working pre- 
sentiment, that all the products of the mere reflective fac- 
ulty partook of death, and were as the rattling twigs and 
sprays in winter, into which a sap was yet to be propelled, 
from some root to which I had not penetrated, if they were 
to afford my soul either food or shelter. If they were too 
often a moving cloud of smoke to me by day, yet they were 
always a pillar of fire throughout the night, during my 
wanderings through the wilderness of doubt, and enabled 
me to skirt without crossing the sandy deserts of utter 
unbelief." The true depth and inmost centre of science is 
never to be gained by those who take the mind alone and 
leave the heart behind. And as to that root from which 
alone the sap can come, which is to vivify the products of 
the reflective faculty, it can be none other than Christ. 
Without a vital acquaintance with him, no man can pre- 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 217 

tend to the character of a Christian Philosopher ; and I may 
add, that however distinguished for intellectual subtlety the 
philosophers and the students of any nation may be, if the 
product of the reflective faculty be the curse of a Christ- 
less philosophy, the sharpness of intellectual discipline is 
purchased at a dreadful price. 1 do not say an infidel, 
but a Christless philosophy, which, with whatever con- 
comitants it may grow up, must become one of the great- 
est curses that can be fastened on the literature of a 
people. 

IV. A fourth requisite, which may be mentioned as 
characteristic of a Christian philosopher, is a candid and 
charitable appreciation of other men's points of view, not 
views simply, but points of view. For this Christian and 
discriminating candor, Dr. Marsh's mind and heart were 
remarkable. " This man is in error," he could say, " but 
I see how he has fallen into it ; I can see his point of view, 
and from that point his error was very natural : nay, from 
that point, it may be but a truth carried to extremes, or 
one side of a truth without the other. I can convince him 
of the difficulty." For the exercise of such candor, freedom 
from self-opinion, and the attitude of a learner are always 
necessary. Humility of heart, as well as acuteness of in- 
tellect, is necessary ; and this was one of Dr. Marsh's 
shining traits. 

These qualities were of eminent advantage to him in his 
duties as a teacher. He was candid almost to an extreme 
in entertaining objections, and giving them full play and 
scope. He would often perceive the objection laboring in 
a student's mind, and would proceed to give it an expression 
more forcibly and clearly than the student could have 
done for himself, so that it might, on certain occasions, be 
said, that he could understand the mind and views of others 
better than they could themselves. Neither was he afraid 
to let it be seen, that while teaching others he was himself 

10 



218 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

a learner. I am reminded of a characteristic anecdote of 
Dr. Reid, of Scotland. I believe he relates it himself 
in his lectures on Moral Philosophy. The class were reading 
Cicero de Finibus, when one of the students came to a hard 
place, which the doctor himself could not explain. "I 
thought I had the meaning, gentlemen," said he, " but I 
have not, and will be obliged to any one who will construe 
it. 5 ' A student stood up and translated it, and the doctor 
expressed his gratitude. Nothing will win the affection and 
confidence of students more surely than such engaging can- 
dor ; it is the quality of a truly great mind. Dr. Marshes- 
intercourse with his students was always that of a friend, 
and his instructions were rather as a Socratic friendly con- 
versation, than as a formal, ex Cathedra statement of the 
truth. In this way he gained much himself, and others 
learned more. 

The want of this appreciation of other men's points of 
view, of which I have spoken, has produced much prejudice 
and self-opinion, which have greatly hindered the progress 
of truth. The habit of learning from other men's errors, is 
almost as important as the opposing of them ; but for this> 
it is necessary not only to scrutinize the error as it comes 
before your own mind, but to see it, if possible, where it 
springs up, to project yourself, as it were, into another 
man's associations and position. The power of such ap- 
preciation, though it be difficult, and requires a peculiar 
exercise of mind, does nevertheless exist more than the de- 
sire. What we wish to say to an antagonist is this : — • 
You have shown the matter in your position ; now come 
hither, and stand with me, and see it in the light in which 
I am viewing it. If this habit be good for one side, it is 
good and truthful for another ; and indeed if this rule 
were adopted, one half the controversies in the world 
would cease. 

It cannot be denied, that in most controversies there is 
more or less truth on both sides ; the silver grey and the 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 219 

dark green belonging to the same olive leaf. He possesses 
a rare qualification as a philosopher, who can put himself 
into the position of those whose minds are taking a different 
view from his own; who, being in the sun, can project 
himself into the situation of those who are standing in the 
shade ; or, being in the wind, can project himself into the 
position of an observer where it is a dead calm. 

Dr. Marsh's mind was singularly free from prejudice, and 
disinterested in pursuit of truth. It was characteristic of 
him that he shrank from controversy, especially on the sub- 
ject of religion, though he did not shrink from the expres- 
sion of his views. " If I were disposed to controversy," 
said he, " it would, I suppose, be very easy in me to make 
a noise in the great Babel, but they make enough without 
my help.' 5 He was wise in avoiding controversy. The 
excitement produced in it is too often distorting and preju- 
dicial, both to the mind and the heart. And even as to 
pious feeling itself, it is too apt in such cases to become 
sour, crude, intolerant and caustic. Astronomers tell us 
that we are nearer to the sun in December than in June ; 
so there is a sort of dog-day fervor in controversial piety, 
in which the church may be really farther from God than 
in the dead of winter. And in philosophy, controversial- 
ists, going to extremes, are apt to retreat each into an 
opposite error. 

V. It were almost superfluous to speak of Dr. Marsh's 
profound reverence for the Word of God, his delight in it, 
his love and submission to it. But inasmuch as this is a 
characteristic which has rarely belonged to philosophers in 
this world, and yet is an indispensible requisite in the char- 
acter of a Christian Philosopher ; and as there is a phi- 
losophy of tradition as well as of inspiration, and a support, 
in some quarters, of claims that derogate from and conflict 
with the claims of the Word of God ; I need no apology 
for dwelling at some length on this subject. The admira- 



220 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

ble views of Dr. Marsh on the subject of a scriptural re- 
ligious education, and on the foundation of our national 
well-being and stability in the Bible, I shall have occasion 
separately to notice. His personal regard to the Word of 
God, and his views of its evidence and authority, are what 
I now refer to ; and if I am not mistaken, they embraced 
some considerations of importance, which I shall for a 
moment dwell upon. 

I repeat, then, at the outset, that an essential character- 
istic of a Christian Philosopher is the reception of the 
Scriptures as the Word not of man but of God. I use 
this phraseology, because it is in the Scriptures themselves, 
and it will be clearly seen how much is meant by it. There 
is a far greater dependence of the philosophic mind for 
its success, for the pertinence, soundness and acuteness 
of its speculations, on such a reception of the Scriptures, 
with a corresponding prayerful study of them, such as Dr. 
Marsh was accustomed to, than is generally imagined. 
We suspect that Lord Bacon's views of divine inspiration 
were the source of not a little of his great wisdom ; nor is 
it at all characteristic of a strong mind, or of impartial in- 
dependent thought, either to cut loose from the Bible, or 
to hold such lax views of its inspiration, as to make it 
scarcely more binding than the Koran. 

The human mind in relation to the Word of God is like 
a kite, needing to be confined, in order that it may steadily 
soar. Not even the Spirit of God lifts up the soul, except 
as it is confined to the Scriptures. If a mind, in the vague 
aspirations of a philosophic freedom, chafes at this bondage, 
and will be released, then it happens as with a boy's paper 
kite in the air, when the string is broken. For a moment 
it seemes to soar more loftily, then wavers irregularly, and 
plunges headlong to the earth. Just so, a mind abandon- 
ing the Word of God, may seem for a season to be sail- 
ing with supreme dominion through regions of original 
thought, but it soon wavers, plunges, and falls. 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 221 

There are degrading views of inspiration as unphilosophi- 
cal and almost as injurious in their tendency, as its entire 
rejection. One of the most striking instances of prejudice 
and inconsistency in a philosophic mind, is to be found in 
the views entertained by Mr. Coleridge in regard to the 
Word of God ; views which would, if driven closely, be as 
a ploughshare of ruin to the Christian system, or else would 
land the believer in a pseudo-Romanism, with an infallible 
church possessing an inspiration denied to the Scriptures, 
but without which, in themselves, let the inspiration of 
the church be what it might, the Scriptures would be of 
no avail. I refer to the publication of the Confessions 
of an Enquiring Spirit, the least intellectual and the most 
unphiiosophical of all his productions. The true subjective 
evidence of the Word of God, internal in the scriptures, 
and subjective in us, is opposed to three false schemes ; the 
scheme which assumes the church as the infallible and only 
interpreter ; the scheme in philosophy, which would reduce 
the evidences of Christianity to mere miracles and histor- 
ical testimony ; and the scheme which supposes in man a 
natural spiritual faith, the product even of his unregen- 
erate state. 

In speaking of the grounds of our faith in the Word of 
God, and of the nature of its evidence in the eye of a 
Christian Philosopher, we begin with the remembrance, 
that the divine mind, in moving upon our minds, does it 
ordinarily through the affections. In no other way is faith 
in us practicable. He that doeth my will shall know of 
the doctrine whether it be of God. A right state of the 
affections is essential for the doing of God's will, is a part 
of it ; and there can be no right knowing, no real faith, 
where heavenly affections do not exist. The Spirit of God 
moves the mind by the affections, rather than the affections 
by the mind. The Word of God makes its appeal to the 
affections, supposes right affections, and shows, a priori, 
the necessity of them, by pre-supposing them. 



222 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

There is a beautiful analogy in nature. On a bright 
day in summer, while the west wind breathes gently, you 
stand before a forest of maples, or you are attracted by a 
beautiful tree in the open field, that seems a dense clump 
of foliage. You cannot but notice how easily the wind 
moves it, how quietly, how gracefully, how lovingly, the 
whole body of it. It is simply because it is covered with 
foliage. The same wind rattling through its dry branches 
in wdnter, would scarce bend a bough, or only to break it. 
But now, softly whispering through ten thousand leaves, 
how gently the whole tree yields to the impression ! So it 
is with the affections, the feelings. They are the foliage 
of our being, and God's own Spirit moves our mind, our 
will, by our affections. 

Hence the necessity of carefully cherishing and culti- 
vating the affections, if we would be easily moved towards 
God, and susceptible of the gentle influences of His Spirit. 
Nothing can supply the place of this foliage. And accord- 
ingly, if it have fallen off through early neglect, if a harsh 
and unkind education have nipped it in the bud, if parental 
tenderness and care have been wanting, so that either no 
affections, or evil ones, have place in the being, the tree 
will be likely to remain a fruitless, unsightly incumbrance, 
of which God in due time will say, " Cut it down ; why 
cumbereth it the ground ?" The more green leaves a man 
has in his composition, the more easily will the breath of 
God's Spirit move him. Accordingly the apostle, speaking 
of some who seemed hardened beyond the possibility of re- 
claiming, observes that they were without natural affec- 
tion. There was nothing which the Spirit of God might 
lay hold on to move their being. 

Now, in regard to the word of God, and our reception 
of it, our faith in it, our experience of its realities, our 
knowledge of its power; it is manifest that there must be 
right affections towards God, a humble and tender spirit 
and frame of mind and heart. If there be no such affec- 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 223 

tions towards God, how is it possible that there should be 
a hearty acknowledgment of his word ? " My sheep hear 
my voice ; but a stranger's voice will they not hear." It 
is my sheep who hear ; not the goats, nor the wolves, who 
are not expected to hear, but with terror. It is my sheep, 
who hear, and my voice, which alone they will hear, which 
alone is divine. 

We have heard the evidence of the Scriptures likened to 
that with which a child knows a letter from its father ; 
but it must be a child, and not a stranger, a child ac- 
quainted with its father, and accustomed to communion 
with him. A child that has wandered from its father's 
house from the earliest infancy, and disobeyed its parent, 
nor ever had any communion with him, would neither 
recognize his handwriting nor his thoughts. How can 
there be internal evidence, where there is, or has been, no 
communion of spirit, no previous acquaintance ? To know 
that this is a letter from our Heavenly Father, we must 
be the children of our Father ; our affections must be 
warm towards him, and then every line will be full of evi- 
dence, full of God. Evil men understand not judgment, 
but they that seek the Lord understand all things. The 
difficulty is not in the intellect, but in the heart ; and what 
is needed is not so much a reasoning intellect, as what is 
called in Scripture an understanding heart. Fides enim 
debet precedere intellectum, tit sit intellectus fidei pre- 
mium. For faith must precede the understanding, that 
a full understanding may be the reioard of faith. Faith 
being an exercise of the heart, these words of Augustine 
are right. Mr. Coleridge even applies them to other writ- 
ings besides the Scriptures. If now, there be no such 
affection of the heart towards God, towards Christ, how 
should his voice be recognized ; how should there be a 
heartfelt and intuitive acknowledgment of his word? 
Quantum sumus scimus. So much as ice are ive know. 
How deep and entire a truth is this in religion ! 



224 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

It is true, indeed, that the conscience may acknowledge 
the threatenings of God's Word, without the heart ; and 
for this purpose the prescriptive belief in the Bible as the 
Word of God, that belief w T hich comes with our education 
from our very birth, is of immeasurable importance and 
utility. But this prescriptive belief is very different from 
faith ; it is as different as the credence of human testi- 
mony by the understanding, and of divine testimony by 
the heart. The will can never be submissive to the 
Word of God, till at the same time its evidence is felt 
in the affections. If there were right affections towards 
God, there would be everywhere an instant acknowledg- 
ment and love of God's Word, just as a child knows and 
loves the tones of its father. But it is precisely because 
of the want of these right affections naturally, that such a 
prescriptive belief is of so great importance. Some men 
are prejudiced against the prescriptive belief, against build- 
ing upon it in any case, until the mind and heart adopt it on 
historical proof. And hence the external evidences of Chris- 
tianity have been exalted into a place of undue authority. 

But it is absurd to suppose that nothing in religion is to 
be taught by prescription, by authority ; almost everything 
that we learn must be taught in this way. Our first 
knowledge of science demands this prescriptive belief, this 
believing spirit. And will you deny this to the Word of 
God ? You teach your child the nature of electricity. 
You point it to the lightning. You bring your child to the 
electrical machine, and communicate its shock. Your 
child's knowledge of electricity is somewhat different after 
the shock from what it was before ; but would it be philo- 
sophical to refuse all belief in the agency and power of 
electricity before the experience of that shock ? You take 
your child to a galvanic apparatus, and show him the same 
powerful agent burning diamonds, rocks, metals ; can the 
child understand it ? How does he know that it is not all 
a deception? Shall he wait till he can prove it himself? 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 225 

Do you ever dream of its being unphilosophical to train up 
your child in a belief of mysteries in nature, which he can- 
not understand — which he cannot yet for himself demon- 
strate ? Do you think it philosophy to keep your child in 
ignorance or in doubt, or to teach it to keep its faculties 
of opinion and belief inactive in regard to those particulars, 
until it can judge solely for itself? Nothing, you will say, 
is a greater absurdity. Apply then the same reasoning to 
the Word of God. 

" Have you children/' asks Mr. Coleridge, " or have you 
lived among children, and do you not know that in all things, 
in food, in medicine, in all their doings and abstainings, 
they must believe in order to acquire a reason for their be- 
lief ? But so it is with religious truths for all men. These 
we must all learn as children. The ground of the prevailing 
error on this point is the ignorance that in spiritual concern- 
ments to believe and to understand are not diverse things, but 
the same thing in different periods of its growth. Belief is 
the seed received into the will, of which the understanding or 
knowledge is the flower, and the thing believed is the fruit." 

There must be a prejudice in favor of God ; the fact that 
we are created beings makes this not only in a moral point 
of view obligatory, but also, in an intellectual point of view, 
necessary and inevitable ; there must then, of course, be an 
atmosphere of belief, without which the proofs themselves 
would be useless. Is it necessary, in order to an impartial 
judgment, that this atmosphere be taken away from the 
soul, or that we be taken out of it ? Would you require, 
in order to an impartial criticism on the Parthenon or the 
Temple of Theseus, that the radiant atmosphere of Greece 
should be destroyed, and the fogs of England be made to 
occupy its place ; that the Parthenon should never be seen 
against the opal-colored morning on Hymettus, or the Tem- 
ple of Theseus in the rosy light of an Athenian sunset ? 
This prejudice in favor of heavenly things, this rosy light 
of a prescriptive belief in our souls, must it first be de- 



226 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

stroyed before we can look at the objects of faith correctly ? 
Where the affections are right, faith is simply the intuition 
of proof seen in this atmosphere. 

It were quite as philosophical to call for historical proof 
of the Sun's creation, before believing in the light of the 
sun, as it is to demand historical proof of the Word of God, 
before believing in the light of that Word. Do you ask 
why ? Because, the Word of God shines by an intrinsic, 
self-evidencing power, to an inward sense, just as the sun 
shines by a self-evidencing power to an outward sense. But 
an objector may say, suppose a man hands to me the book 
of Mormon, affirming that to be the Word of God ; would 
not the same rule bind me to believe that ? We answer 
not at all ; it would bind you not to believe it ; for the self- 
evidence in that case is the self-evidence of a lie, the intrin- 
sic color of falsehood. But, if there should come to you 
another book, with the same self-evidencing power of divine 
truth that you have in the Word of God, you may and 
must receive it as his Word ; for nothing will have that 
evidence but his Word. And just so, if another sun should 
be lighted up in God's firmament, you must receive that as 
God's sun, and not as a mock luminary, the work of a de- 
ceiver. Because, nothing but a revelation from God ever 
will or ever can have the intrinsic power of evidence and 
authority that the Word of God has. Everything else will 
speak as the scribes, and having the stamp and authority 
of the scribes merely, you are not bound to believe it. 

You can bring as many and as strong arguments against 
the light of the sun, as you can against the divine light of 
the Scriptures. In one view, both are to be proved by the 
senses ; in another view, the Bible has a proof beyond and 
above the senses, which the sun has not. It is my senses, 
which bring to me the historical proof of the Scriptures. 
That proof demands my belief on external testimony. But 
this alone could never convince me ; this is not all my 
proof for the Word of God, but the least part of it ; it is 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 227 

merely an adjunct; it is not even necessary. In the Word 
of God itself I have an independent ground of conviction, 
and a temple of faith by the Spirit of God in my soul, of 
which my senses indeed, in the conveyance of paper, ink, 
and printer's types, bring in the materials, and build up 
the scaffolding, but which arises in my soul entirely distinct 
and apart from sense and historical testimony. The his- 
torical scaffolding may be taken down, and the way in 
which the stones of the temple in my soul came into their 
place may have passed from human knowledge, but the 
temple stands as firm and real, notwithstanding. The way 
in which the key-stone was put in may have perished, but 
the arch is not on that account the less strong, upspringing, 
and expanding. 

On the other hand, it is my senses that bring to me all 
the proof of the sun's existence ; for there is no sun within 
me as a counterpart, no reality in my soul to answer to the 
archetype without. I have therefore more and higher proof 
of God's Word, and that it is his Word, than I have of the 
sun. The sun may be a deception, or a creation of my 
own sense merely, or if not, it may be the work of a great 
demon. But this Word is not my creation, and it could 
not be the work of an enemy, and it surpasses the power 
of my race. 

But there is a higher evidence still. What evidence 
have you that I am speaking ? You hear my voice, you 
see my person. Do you need other demonstration? No, 
you will say ; but so soon as I cease to speak, what evi- 
dence can you give to another that I have been speaking ? 
None but that of testimony. If you had my words to 
show to another, this would be no evidence beyond your 
own testimony that I had been speaking, that I uttered 
those words. It would still be your own mere testimony. 
This is the very ground, so low, so untenable, on which the 
argument for the Word of God is rested by many minds. 
But, one thing is ommitted. God is still speaking. What 



228 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

evidence had the inspired writers that God was speaking ? 
They heard his voice, they saw his glory, they felt his 
presence. They heard sometimes audibly, sometimes in- 
wardly, sometimes with what are called miraculous demon- 
strations, sometimes without. But if God ceased to speak, 
what evidence could those who thus heard him give to an- 
other that he had been speaking 1 We answer, if God 
ceased to speak, none but that of testimony, mere human 
testimony. Even if they had God's words to show, still 
there would be no evidence beyond their own testimony , 
that God had spoken them. It would be mere human tes- 
timony. They to whom that word was spoken by God, they 
for whom it was intended, would feel its evidence, and would 
be compelled to acknowledge it as from God ; but others, 
to whom it was merely shown by those to whom it came, 
would not feel its evidence, would not be compelled to ac- 
knowledge it as from God. To all for whom the Word of 
God was intended, the Word of God speaks, God himself 
speaks ; and if they do not recognize the divine voice, it is 
because of moral evil in themselves ; it is because they are 
goats or wolves, and not sheep. But even in them the 
conscience may respond to the divine voice, though the heart 
may refuse to recognize it. 

The point then is this : If God does not still speak, there 
is no suitable evidence that he has spoken. He must speak 
to you and to me, as well as to the prophets and apos- 
tles, or it is mere human testimony. He does thus speak ; 
and now if you ask, What evidence have you that God is 
speaking ? the answer is, We hear his voice, ive feel his 
presence, we know his Spirit. This is the point. My 
sheep hear my voice. The Word of God is never without 
the Spirit of God, and never ceases to sound. It speaks as 
audibly now, and as directly to you and to me, as to the 
prophets. This is the meaning of that declaration, the Word 
of God liveth and abideth forever. It is a continuous, 
imperishable, personal utterance, not dependent for its au- 






THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 229 

thentioity upon human witnesses, but making itself felt in 
the soul, having its witnesses there. It had its witnesses 
in the soul in the case of the prophets ; if it had not had 
them, all miracles would have been of no avail, would have 
produced no conviction. And just so now, if there be not 
these witnesses within, all external testimony will be of no 
avail, not even miracles now enacted. The word preached 
did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them 
that heard it. 

What then is the only admissible and irresistible witness 
to the Word of God ? It is the witness of his Spirit. 
And therefore Archbishop Usher, at the close of his very 
powerful array of the reasons, which prove that God is the 
author of the Holy Scriptures, puts the question, Are these 
motives of themselves sufficient to work saving faith, and 
persuade us fully to rest in God's word ? and answers, No. 
" Besides all these it is required that we have the Spirit of 
God, as well to open our eyes to see the light, as to seal up 
fully unto our hearts that truth, which we see with our 
eyes. For the same Holy Spirit, that inspired the Scrip- 
tures, inclineth the hearts of God's children to believe what 
is revealed in them, and inwardly assureth them above all 
reasons and arguments, that these are the Scriptures of 
God. Therefore the Lord, by the prophet Isaiah, promiseth 
to join his Spirit with his Word, and that it shall remain 
with his children forever. And so in other promises. This 
testimony of God's Spirit in the hearts of his faithful, as it 
is peculiar to the Word of God, so it is greater than any 
human persuasions grounded upon reason or witnesses of 
men ; unto which it is unmeet that the Word of God should 
be subject, as papists hold when they teach that the Scrip- 
tures receive their authority from the church. For by 
thus hanging the credit and authority of the Scriptures 
on the church's sentence, they make the church's word of 
greater credit than the Word of God. Whereas the Scrip- 
tures of God cannot be judged or sentenced by any ; and 



230 CHARACTERISTICS OP 

God only is a worthy witness of himself, in his Word and 
by his Spirit, which give mutual testimony one of the other, 
and work that assurance of faith in his children, that no 
human demonstrations can make, nor any persuasions or 
enforcements of the world can remove." 

This is a noble passage ; nor have we ever seen the 
reasons of Faith in the Scriptures as the Word of God more 
powerfully set forth, and set far above all historical provers 
and church-dependants on the one side, and all transcen- 
dental independents on the other, than in the vigorous and 
Christian logic of Usher and Haly burton. 

Then, perhaps you will ask, is external testimony of no 
avail ? We answer, Much every way. And the power of 
a prescriptive belief in the Word of God will be growing 
stronger and stronger with the increase of this testimony, 
in the increase of the multitudes, who are brought to the 
experience of the power of God's Word, and to the exer- 
cise of this higher, appropriating personal faith. And 
herein is the power, the spirituality, the efficacy of different 
churches tested, just in proportion to the simplicity and 
purity of their reliance on the Word of God, their profound 
unshaken conviction and belief of its infallible inspiration, 
and their acting accordingly. If any church dares give 
to its own word and ordinances an infallibility which it 
denies to the Word of God, it must inevitably become 
weak, corrupt, ambitious. If any church thus dares come 
between the Word of God and the soul, it is the betrayer, 
instead of the keeper of its trust, it injures instead of helps 
the believer ; it is as a dreaming mother, who overlays and 
suffocates her own children. But just in proportion to the 
simple, unadulterated, untraditionary faith, with which any 
church receives and lives upon God's Word, will be the in- 
crease, by the instrumentality of that church, of the power 
of external testimony to the world ; for multitudes of men 
will be converted — converted not to the church, but to God ; 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 231 

and every new convert by God's Word is a new witness of 
the divinity of that Word. 

The testimony of the church of God concerning the 
Word of God, and not concerning herself, is great, is 
mighty. It is the testimony of the Word and Spirit of 
God, in and through the church, by its participation in the 
divine nature, its manifestation of the divine holiness. But 
then, if it were all annihilated, the Word of God, in its 
simple majesty, would have just as much power to all to 
whom it speaks, falling like a cataract into the depths of 
the soul. A man who has never heard of the cataract of 
Niagara, would be just as much overwhelmed by it, if he 
came upon it in the wilderness, as if he had heard the 
voice of nations testifying to its sublimity. Just so it is 
with the Scriptures. Their external testimony, as Mr. 
Berridge used to say of learning, is a good stone to throw 
at a dog to stop his barking. It is good to meet the objec- 
tions of infidels, good to show that no counterproof can be 
brought against your argument ; good also for the mind to 
fall back upon in times when the spiritual vision is dark, 
the soul clouded, and only the earthly understanding wake- 
ful. But after all if the Word of God is living, abiding, 
speaking, whenever and however it comes, it comes with 
divine authority, and needs no attendant to usher it in, no 
herald to demonstrate its dignity. 

This view of the self-evidence and divine authority of 
the Scriptures, so fundamental in a true philosophy, and 
yet such a stranger to philosophy in general, is that, to 
which Dr. Marsh's philosophical investigations would di- 
rectly lead ; that in which he himself, we believe, as a 
Christian Philosopher, delighted. He insisted much on the 
necessity of studying the Word of God with an humble 
and believing spirit. And for the right interpretation of 
Scripture, he insisted not merely on the guidance of cor- 
rect critical rules, but on the light shed by the experience, 



232 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

within our own souls, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, 
of what God has revealed in his Word ; there being " no 
light which can guide us to a right and full understanding 
of the Scriptures, except that which first shines in our own 
heart." " Wherever," says he, " the subject treated of is 
of a spiritual nature, we must have in addition to all these 
outward helps, the exercise and development of the cor- 
responding spiritual acts and affections in our own con- 
sciousness. How is it possible, otherwise, for us to under- 
stand the words, or to refer them to the things designated ? 
We may have a notion of their effects and relations ; but 
the words, in this case, mean more than these ; and more 
must be known, before the meaning of the writer can be 
fully apprehended. We must sit at the feet of our Divine 
Master, and learn of him, and obey his commands, before 
we can know of his doctrine, before we can fully under- 
stand or believe in the name of Jesus." 

The faith of which I have spoken is, it will be seen, very 
different from a mere belief in the truth ; it is belief in 
God, the resting of the soul on that affirmation, Thus saith 
the Lord. This separates it from that belief in Christianity, 
of which some men and sects make so great a parade under 
the profession of a pure and lofty regard for truth. They 
say, we receive the Word of God, because it is true ; on 
this assumption, they take whatever they choose in and 
from it, which suits their views of truth ; on this assump- 
tion also they say they will receive the Word of God, so 
far as it is true. They acknowledge the " divine origin 
of the religion of Christ, and its adaptation to be the faith of 
the world, when presented in a form corresponding with its 
inherent spirit, and with the scientific culture of the present 
age." They say that " while other teachers have commit- 
ted their wisdom to writing, Jesus Christ confided in the 
divine energy of his doctrine, lest, being entrusted to words, 
which are but breath, it should be dispersed and lost." 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 233 

These men talk of a divine inspiration, but will not receive 
it anywhere in set words. For them there is no word of 
God ; It is too narrow a confinement of their soaring faith 
to tie it to a form of words, to restrict it to a volume ; as if, 
forsooth, that which is but the temporary record of one mode 
of divine inspiration, should bind heart and soul to its dic- 
tates. They believe in the truth, and not in such an inspi- 
ration. Their search for truth seems to them much more 
grand and lofty than any mere searching for the truth as 
it is in Jesus. 

But this is not God's view ; this is not Christian philo- 
sophy. It was never the direction of our blessed Lord him- 
self in matters of religion to search the truth, but to search 
the Scriptures. There is much pretended philosophical 
seeking for the truth, combined with a denial of the Scrip- 
tures ; just as there is much pretended seeking for life, 
combined with unbelief in, and a denial of, Him, who is the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life. God has given to us eter- 
nal life, and this life is in his Son, and in his Word as it 
reveals his Son. God has given to us eternal truth, and 
this truth is in his Son, and in his Word as it reveals his 
Son. The whole mass of general believers, but particular 
infidels, receive the first part of both these propositions, but 
reject the last. Philosophy, in their view, is larger than 
faith, and cannot, like faith, be confined to a record. 

This I apprehend to be one of the characteristics of that 
spurious philosophy, which, by a strange misnomer, has so 
appropriated the term transcendentalism to itself, that it is 
now almost a hopeless task to recall this abused name to its 
real meaning. It has had a philosophical meaning, accurate, 
important, and not invidious. This meaning is admirably 
conveyed in the following passage from Mr. Coleridge's Bi- 
ographia Literaria : " There is a philosophic (and inasmuch 
as it is actualized by an effect of freedom an artificial) con- 
sciousness, which lies beneath, or as it were behind the 
spontaneous consciousness natural to all reflecting beings. 



234 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

As the elder Romans distinguished their northern provinces 
into Cis-alpine and Trans-alpine, so may we divide all the 
objects of human knowledge into those on this side, and 
those on the other side of the spontaneous consciousness ; 
citra et trans conscientiam communem. The latter is ex- 
clusively the domain of pure philosophy, which is therefore 
properly entitled transcendental, in order to discriminate it 
at once both from mere reflection and representation on the 
one hand, and on the other from those flights of lawless 
speculation, which, abandoned by all distinct consciousness, 
because transgressing the bounds and purposes of our in- 
tellectual faculties, are justly condemned as transcendents 
Now the term transcendental, the old philosophical term, 
has been stolen from this, its proper acceptation, and ap- 
plied to those flights of lawless speculation, thus severely 
characterized by Mr. Coleridge. Transcendentalism, then, 
has come to mean, if defined by the system of many who 
assume it, that which transcends and casts off the letter 
and the word, as that which killeth, and rises into the spirit 
alone, as that which maketh alive. This philosophic unbe- 
lief dwells much, of late days, on the internal evidences of 
Christianity ; but it is the evidence of general truths taken 
from the Scriptures, while the Scriptures themselves are 
cast aside as not necessarily a part of Christianity, not an 
essential and inseparable embodiment of it, without which 
it would cease soon to have an existence. Here this trans- 
cendentalism is that which, having received the inflation of 
those sublime ideas entrusted by the Saviour to their own 
energy, transcends or rises superior to the temporary record 
of them. As a butterfly soars from its chrysalis, or as a 
balloon, cut loose from the point at which it was inflated, 
wings its independent way through space, so the soul of 
the transcendentalist, having breathed the breath of life, 
soars into the pure empyrean, where truth is not confined 
to particular demonstration, and where Christianity is too 
large and magnificent to need an appeal to the records of 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 235 

the Old and New Testaments. This would be like a but- 
terfly returning into its chrysalis. Now the consequence 
of such a career is inevitable. This departure from divine 
truth leaves both the soul and its literature, the transcen- 
dentalist and his forth -puttings, first to a magnificent but 
superficial religious sentimentalism, and next to open Deism 
or concealed Pantheism, with a stale, sickening redecoction 
of the originalities of the strong-minded infidelity of a former 

The denial of the Scriptures as the word of God, by 
which we mean the denial of their infallible inspiration, 
leads to two opposite extremes ; infidelity on the one side, 
and a bondage to the church on the other. If it be not to 
us as individuals that the Scriptures speak, and with all 
the self-evidence which they need, then an infallible church 
is the necessary result, in order to secure the true interpre- 
tation of the Scriptures, and to supply their lack of au- 
thority. The only protection alike from the license of 
infidelity on the one side, and the despotism of ecclesiastical 
bigotry on the other, is to be found in the reception of the 
Word of God as his Word and not man's, as his Word 
speaking to each individual soul, and by each individual 
soul to be received, obeyed, and lived upon. This is true 
independence, righteousness and power ; this the stability 
of a good education ; this shall be the glory of this Northern 
University, consecrated as one of the dwelling-places of 
God's holy light and truth. " May those who teach," said 
Dr. Marsh, "and those who learn, in this institution, re- 
ceive with meekness the ingrafted word, and be all taught 
of God." 

The license of infidelity without the Word, many take 
the profession of a faith and a religion, higher, holier, 
freer, than can possibly be founded on a form of words ; 
and even Pantheism itself may be represented as the sub- 
lime yearnings of the soul, rising above its personal self, 
to be absorbed and lost in God, the universal all in all 



236 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

This mere intellectual sublimated sentimentalism is but an 
Indian Oriental Mysticism, reproduced under the light of 
Christianity. At an earlier period its admirers would 
have been the Gnostics, as they are now the transcen- 
dentalists of Christian society. Doubtless there is this 
natural intellectual yearning after God, even when the 
heart is at enmity against him. Expressed in the contem- 
plations of any man of high intellect, it will often look 
like the unutterable, illimitable yearnings of a deep, mys- 
tic, holy piety. There is such a reflection of God in the 
soul. But it is without life, or if life circulates in it, being 
only the life of nature, it disturbs it. It is like the reflec- 
tion of the sky and the trees in a quiet lake. Let it rest 
in perfect stillness, and you would think that heaven itself 
were there. But let the wind sweep over it, or a storm 
agitate it, 

Or if a stone the smooth expanse divide, 
Swift ruffling circles curl on every side. 

So let the winds of passion rise, and this intellectual reflec- 
tion of the image of God and divine things is dispersed 
and broken in ten thousand fragments. 

The calmness and beauty of this intellectual abstraction 
are often taken for religion itself, so that Spinosa has been 
regarded as one of the most pious of mankind. His 
writings have been likened to those of Thomas a Kempis ! 
He was not, perhaps, so justly to be called an Atheist, as 
an Aktismatist, or an Aktisist ; for he denied a creature 
rather than a God; " but his scheme," said John Howe, 
in his Living Temple, " though he and his followers would 
cheat the world with names, and with a specious show of 
piety, is as directly levelled against all religion, as any 
the most avowed Atheism ; for as to religion, it is all one 
whether we make nothing to be God, or everything; whether 
we allow of no God to worship, or leave none to worship 
him." In this transcendental scheme there are no two 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 237 

things more similar than Pantheism and Piety : absorption 
in God, self-renunciation, self-annihilation, union with the 
Infinite, and other things talked of, being marvellously 
similar to the self-denial and self-crucifixion for Christ's 
sake, recommended in the Scriptures. " The scheme of 
Spinosa," said Howe, " though with great pretence of devo- 
tion it acknowledges a Deity, yet so confounds this his 
fictitious Deity with every substantial being in the world 
besides, that upon the whole it appears altogether incon- 
sistent with any rational exercise or sentiment of religion 
at all." Just so, this transcendental devotion, which 
absorbs us in the universe, and makes religion to consist in 
the rapt adoration of the God of Pantheism, is quite in- 
consistent with a personal discipline of the affections in the 
worship of a personal God under guidance of the Scrip- 
tures. To lay one's being at the foot of the cross, to 
mortify and subject the self-will to God in Christ, is widely 
different from this vague, mystical absorption of the being 
in an ideal God, in a universal influence. And so the 
search for truth, and the love of it, under the forms laid 
down in the Scriptures, are very different from the philo- 
sophical search, like the Greeks, for wisdom ; a passion, in 
which there is at least as much pride as disinterestedness. 
In fine, in the words of the holy Archbishop Leighton, "If 
any pretend that they have the Spirit, and so turn away 
from the strait rule of the Holy Scriptures, they have a 
spirit indeed, but it is a fanatical spirit, a spirit of delusion 
and giddiness : but the Spirit of God, that leads his chil- 
dren in the way of truth, and is for that purpose sent them 
from heaven to guide them thither, squares their thoughts 
and ways to that rule whereof it is the author, and that 
Word, which was inspired by it, and sanctifies them to 
obedience." 

VI. A Christian Philosopher has much to do with Chris- 
tian Theology ; but it is as a learner rather than a critic ; 



238 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

for without doubt philosophy should always stand and 
serve, as a modest handmaid to Theology, and not as a 
superior judge. By Christian Theology we mean what 
Zuingle has called " God's thoughts in his own Word ;" and 
in a system of Theology it will be characteristic of the 
Christian Philosopher to fix his starting point, and his last 
tribunal, in the Scriptures, and to bring his investigations 
thither for the determination of their truth. If change 
and accommodation must be made, it is his business rather 
to accommodate his views to the Bible, than the Bible to 
his views. Deplorable have been the results of using a 
philosophy, or a theological system framed for it, as the 
veil, medium, or atmosphere of divine truth. " Philosophy 
and theology," said Zuingle, " were constantly raising 
difficulties in my mind. At length I was brought to say, 
We must leave these things, and endeavor to enter into 
God's thoughts in his own Word." 

But what can the philosophy and theology be made of, 
which are constantly raising difficulties, instead of reveal- 
ing truth ? Human speculations, prejudices, and fancies 
of opinion ; — these, marched before the Bible as its van- 
guard, instead of being in their place, as the rabble of 
camp-followers, have done immeasurable mischief. Divine 
truth, behind such a medium, is as the sun in an eclipse, 
creating a dim disastrous twilight. Many a mind, before 
it found rest in God's Work, has had to run the gauntlet, 
a long and perilous way, through the false philosophy in 
which it had been educated. Need I mention the Sensu- 
ous system, against which, with its dreadful irons for the 
mind, and its rigid necessitarian frame-work for theology, 
Dr. Marsh was, in this country, one of the earliest, firmest, 
profoundest opposers ? 

"Common sense would teach us," says he, in speaking 
of a system of education to be founded on God's Word, 
" that we cannot with propriety combine, in one system 
of instruction, the truths and principles of the Divine 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 239 

Word, and other principles and influences of contrary 
tendency. Our powers of intelligence are not only without 
contradiction in their relation to each other, but they instinct- 
ively tend, under the control of reason, to systematize and 
reduce to consistent and harmonious principles, the whole 
complex body of our knowledge. Do not the interests of 
education, as well as those of religion, require that we 
teach nothing incompatible with those great truths and 
principles of the Divine Word, which are themselves fitted 
to seize with such power upon the mind. Especially 
should all appearance of contradiction be avoided here, in 
that stage of an education, when the mind is becoming 
more distinctly conscious of its own energies, and of the 
grounds of truth in its own being." 

If a man's philosophical system be such an one as de- 
stroys the possibility of human freedom, and if he forms 
his theology into a system under its influence, this is not 
to act the part of a Christian Philosopher. If a man's 
philosophical system be one that rejects the atonement, and 
in the light of that system he comes to the Bible, seeking 
singly to warp its passages to his negative side, and to 
turn its strong affirmations into a tissue of lying metaphors, 
he can in no sense be called a Christian Philosopher. And 
if his philosophical system be one that admits the atone- 
ment, but seeks philosophically to account for it, and in so 
doing takes only its subjective aspect in relation to our- 
selves, disposing of all passages, whether in reference to 
God or man, in that relation only, this, too, is not the 
course of a Christian Philosopher. In this view, the system 
of Mr. Coleridge, if system it can be called, to which that 
great and learned man never gave form and unity, lies 
open to severe remark, in reference to ail that he has said on 
the doctrine of atonement. On this subject he seems to have 
deserted his wonted candor, and to have become a special 
pleader. Disposing of almost the entire language of the 
scriptures on this subject as metaphorical, he has, in effect, 



240 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

resolved the atonement into a mere business of regeneration 
— a mere arrangement of means and ends for our personal 
sanctification. We may, with great probability, suppose 
that this was the result of Mr. Coleridge's early religious 
errors ; one consequence of the cold and deadly baptism of 
his soul in the Unitarian schem©, though he afterwards 
shuddered at its recollection, was an inability or unwilling- 
ness to contemplate the higher ends of the atonement, and 
its higher nature, as revealed in the Scriptures. It is a 
great and most unphilosophical confusion, to mingle and 
interchange what Christ is in and of himself as the regen- 
eration and life of our souls, with the great doctrine of the 
atonement revealing him, in his death, as the sacrifice for 
our sins ; what Christ is when formed in us the hope of 
glory, the inward fountain of salvation, and what his 
atoning sacrifice is in providing for the world the possibility 
of such regeneration ; — confounding, in fine, the regenera- 
ting work of the Spirit with the sacrificial work of the 
Redeemer. 

A mind so clear, profound and evangelical as Dr. Marsh's 
could never have been satisfied with such confusion. This 
is as unphilosophical as if, in explaining the solar system, 
an astronomer should confound the influence of light, by 
which our earth becomes the green and beautiful abode of 
man, with the power of gravitation, by which it is held in 
the solar system. Both these things, indeed, may come 
from the sun, but the power of gravitation is one thing, the 
power of the sun's light another. And so in the system 
of Redemption — the atoning sacrifice of Christ is one thing, 
the regenerating influences of the Spirit are another. And 
as in the solar system, it may be said that the power of 
gravitation is what holds the earth in its orbit, so that the 
sun's light may clothe it in beauty, so, in the system of 
Redemption, the sacrifice of Christ is what holds man in 
his orbit, in such a way that the light of the cross and the 
influences of the Spirit may clothe the soul in the beauty 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 241 

and life of righteousness. For, without the shedding of 
blood, there is no remission ; and it is a dying Christ that 
must render possible with God the world's reconciliation, 
before a living Christ can be the world's regeneration. It 
is a dying Christ that must hold the world in its orbit of 
probation and pardon, that it may not sweep madly into 
the gulf of retribution, before a living Christ can be formed 
in the soul the hope of glory. Wherefore, the names writ- 
ten in the book of life from the foundation of the world, are 
written in it as the book of the slain Lamb. It is the blood 
of Jesus Christ that cleanseth us from all sin ; and to lose 
sight of this fact, or to say that in reference to God and the 
divine attributes, we know little or nothing about it, is to 
lose sight of the great grandeur of the atonement ; of the cross 
as the central point of glory in the universe ; of its omnipo- 
tence as a disciplinary system, taking the place of law ; of 
its power in magnifying the law, and confirming and sus- 
taining its sanctions : of its wisdom and efficacy in reveal- 
ing the enormity of sin ; of the energy with which it speaks 
to the conscience, convincing of guilt in the very work 
undertaken for guilt's removal ; of its definiteness, and 
might, and concentrating glory in its display of the divine 
attributes ; and, in fine, of its whole ulterior influences on 
the universe, and in the government of God. 

Even in regard to ourselves subjectively, the atonement 
can be perfectly understood in its influence upon us, only 
when we take into view its display of the divine character, 
and the manner in which the light of the divine attributes 
comes through its instrumentality into the soul. Our need 
of Christ is not the whole even of the subjective aspect, 
inasmuch as the sight of ourselves in the light of Christ's 
passion, constitutes a great part of it, revealing the divine 
holiness and our guilt. In fine, Mr. Coleridge's view of the 
atonement excludes all notice of some of the grandest, 
clearest, brightest, far-reaching passages in the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; the passages in the 3d of Romans and 1st Colos- 

11 



242 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

sians included, in which, if language means anything, it 
means that it is not the redemption in us through which 
we are justified, but the grace of God through the Redemp- 
tion that is in Christ Jesus : a redemption also, which we 
have in him through his blood; the forgiveness of sins, on 
the ground of that declaration or manifestation of the divine 
righteousness, which has made the justification of the be- 
liever possible. " Whom God hath set forth, a propitiation 
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for 
the remission of sins, through the forbearance of God, that 
he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth 
in Jesus." 

There seems to be in the human mind as real a demand 
objectively for such an atonement, in regard to the display 
and justification of God's attributes, as there is subjectively 
for a personal Christ as the life of God in the soul of man. 
It might have been wished that Dr. Marsh, along with his 
rich, valuable, masterly treatise on man's need of a Saviour, 
an essay as precious in its spiritual influence as it is philo- 
sophically profound in its view of our fallen nature, had 
combined, as its counterpart, a treatise on the necessity 
for the same Saviour on the part of the divine attributes. 
No higher service could have been rendered to the church 
than such a treatise by such a mind would have consti- 
tuted. Perhaps, had he lived a little longer, this would 
have been one labor, to which his great and noble powers, 
his impartial judgment, and his sincere, prayerful, and 
earnest spirit of inquiry would have been dedicated. 

There is an inner circle of qualities and attainments in 
Dr. Marsh's character and habitudes, as a Christian and a 
scholar, which I have not noted, and upon which it would 
not be possible, within this brief space, to dwell. Some 
little idea of his acquisitions may be gathered from the 
perusal of the admirably edited volume of his Remains ; 
and in that volume, those who did not know him before, 
will feel that they know him now ; and that our country, 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 243 

as well as this University, has sustained a loss in his de- 
parture, not easily, nor in a moment, made up. We in- 
dulge the hope, that under his own tuition there may have 
been scholars now in training, whose well-developed minds 
and hearts will ere long do something to supply his influ- 
ence, and fill his place ; living stones, chosen by the Great 
Head of the Church, and now in the* process of cutting and 
polishing, that they also may shine gloriously in his Living 
Temple. 

The volume of Dr. Marsh's remains will be found to 
contain the elements of a philosophy, which even those who 
are not prepared to receive it in its details in regard to the 
Will, or the distinction between the Reason and the Under- 
standing, must rejoice to behold among us in a native 
original form, that it may become the subject of study, 
investigation and proof ; for it introduces the mind to so 
much wider a sphere of discipline and knowledge than that 
which has been customary, it defines so clearly the objects 
and the sphere of science, and demands so absolutely the 
union of the natural sciences with the science of our own 
being, adopting the dynamic theory, defining the spheres of 
physiology and psychology, and in such wise linking the 
philosophy of nature with that which is above nature, and 
that which is above nature directly with God, that if it once 
become the habit of our students, our students themselves 
will be different beings ; with a nobleness of mind, a range 
and depth of knowledge, and a comprehensiveness, clear- 
ness, and accuracy of view, such as has been by no means 
common. Indeed, we are persuaded that this philosophy 
will be as a new and better invigorating atmosphere for the 
mind and heart, so that the intellectual growth which rises 
in it will be nobler, more original, more worthy of the ali- 
ment, both of natural and supernatural truth, than any 
that in our country has yet come into being. 

This we say with the more confidence, because Dr. 
Marsh's opinions were neither hastily adopted, nor hastily 



244 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

expressed. They were neither indefinite nor mystical in 
his own mind, and such was the law of his own mental 
constitution, that he could not express them indefinitely to 
others. I know not where in our literature you can find 
more clearness, simplicity and accuracy in the conveyance 
of philosophical thoughts. He did not merely theorize, but 
sought to express realities. His views of man's nature as 
a spiritual being, of his destiny, and of the education ap- 
propriate and necessary to the development of that being, 
were not matters of mere speculation. They made in him 
a fountain of important, solemn, elevated, practical thought. 
The correlative adaptations of the soul to truth, and of 
divine truth to the soul, were never more affectingly dis- 
played. His views were deeply interesting of the adapta- 
tion of man's outward temple and circumstances to the 
development of his inward being ; and of the manner in 
which God educates our affections, that they may be the 
medium of intercourse with him ; giving us correlative ob- 
jects for the affections of our temporal being, and as full a 
supply in Christ for our spiritual and eternal being. He 
has spoken nobly of the eternal distinction between self- 
interest and duty, as the ground of action. On the subject 
of original sin, he has presented a most powerful and simple 
view of our alienation from God, and of the nature of sin 
in our being. He has laid down a principle of the utmost 
importance in all philosophical discussions, that " no merely 
speculative conclusions can supersede the immediate con- 
victions of practical truth in our moral being." 

He had large and comprehensive views of the system of 
nature, of organic life, of the connection between different 
created natures, of the laws of organization and develop- 
ment ; and had reflected profoundly on the principle or idea 
that must govern the form. But all these investigations 
he pursued in a higher light than any philosopher ever did 
or could, without standing in the sun, as his soul did, in 
the centre of the system of Christianity. " See how near," 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 245 

says he, " according to the above way of looking at the ob- 
jects of knowledge, everything in nature is placed to its 
spiritual ground, and how the higher spiritual consciousness 
in man finds itself in immediate intercourse with the spir- 
itual world ; rather in the immediate presence of God." 
His philosophy w T as imbued with his Christianity, and he 
delighted to prosecute its study under the full influence of 
Christian light and feeling, tracing every good thing to 
God. 

In his philosophical studies he was a great lover of Mr. 
Coleridge's profound, beautiful, and suggestive trains of 
thought and illustration. With the best of the German 
philosophers he was also intimate ; but whatsoever he re- 
ceived from any foreign source became his own, became in 
himself original, beias: the nourishment of a mind that must 
produce fruit from its own profoundness, and richness of 
life and activity. If Mr. Coleridge had possessed Dr. 
Marsh's practical, industrious, methodical habits, or if Dr. 
Marsh had been permitted to enjoy life, as a working period, 
to the more advanced age at which Mr. Coleridge was 
called away ; in either case, the world would no longer 
have had to lament the want of a grand and noble scheme 
of Christian Philosophy consummated. And if now I were 
to undertake to point out the line of Dr. Marsh's investiga- 
tions more definitely, I should commence with the following 
very grand passage from one of Mr. Coleridge's somewhat 
desultory, but always profound and interesting chapters ; 
and with this quotation I shall leave the subject of Dr. 
Marsh's philosophy. 

" The necessary tendency of all natural philosophy is 
from nature to intelligence ; and this, and no other, is the 
true ground and occasion of the instinctive striving to in- 
troduce theory into our views of natural phenomena. The 
highest perfection of natural philosophy would consist in 
the perfect spiritualization of all the laws of nature, into 
laws of intuition and intellect. The phenomena, (the ma- 



246 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

terial,) must wholly disappear, and the laws alone (the for- 
mal,) must remain. Thence it comes that in nature itself, 
the more the principle of law breaks forth, the more does 
the husk drop off, the phenomena themselves become more 
spiritual, and at length cease altogether in our conscious- 
ness. The optical phenomena are but a geometry, the lines 
of which are drawn by light, and the materiality of this 
light itself has already become matter of doubt. In the 
appearances of magnetism all trace of matter is lost, and 
of the phenomena of gravitation, which not a few among 
the most illustrious Newtonians have declared no otherwise 
comprehensible, than as an immediate spiritual influence, 
there remains nothing but its law, the execution of which 
on a vast scale is the mechanism of the heavenly motions. 
The theory of natural philosophy would then be completed ; 
when all nature was demonstrated to be identical in essence 
with that which, in its highest known power, exists in man 
as an intelligence, and self-consciousness ; when. the heav- 
ens and the earth shall declare not only the power of their 
Maker, but the glory and the presence of their God, even 
as he appeared to the great prophet, during the vision of 
the mount in the skirts of his Divinity."^ 

I have but one word to add in reference to those in our 
country, who are habitually prejudiced, and not unfre- 
quently on principle, against all metaphysical specula- 
tions ; and I shall do it in the language of that great writer 
who has been noticed as Dr. Marsh's favorite author ; pre- 
mising that the perusal of the volume of Dr. Marsh's Re- 
mains will go far to the removal of such prejudices from 
every religious mind. The first remark which Mr. Cole- 
ridge makes in reference to such a prejudice, is this : that 
true metaphysics are nothing else but true divinity ; and 
the second is this, that " as long as there are men in the 
world, to whom the Fr©0« aeaviov is an instinct and a com- 
mand from their own nature, so long will there be meta- 

* Biocr Lit. ch. 12. 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 247 

physicians, and metaphysical speculations ; that false met- 
aphysics can be effectually counteracted by true metaphy- 
sics alone ; and that if the reasoning be clear, solid and 
pertinent, the truth deduced can never be the less valua- 
ble on account of the depth from which it may have been 
drawn/' 

In recounting the many and great excellencies of Dr. 
Marsh's character, I am reminded of a beautiful passage 
in Wordsworth's Essay on Epitaphs. " What purity and 
brightness is that virtue clothed in, the image of which 
must no longer bless our living eyes ! The character of a 
deceased friend or beloved kinsman is not seen, no, nor 
ought to be seen, otherwise than as a tree through a tender 
haze, or a luminous mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies 
it, that takes away indeed, but only to the end that the 
parts which are not abstracted, may appear more dignified 
and lovely, may impress and affect the more." In the 
present case there is no such tender haze needed, though 
the sympathy of the mind would inevitably produce it, if 
even an angel had departed ; nor, indeed, is anything 
needed, but the most distinct delineation of the worth of 
the dead, without borrowing any luminous veil from the 
affections of the living. Dr. Marsh was a profound, medi- 
tative, experimental Christian. We have placed this at 
the head of all his qualities, though this part of his charac- 
ter was not, indeed, so much a separate thing, as it was 
the life of all his other excellencies, the atmosphere in 
which all his other qualities grew. The poet Wither beau- 
tifully says of " his remembrance which may live after him, 

If, therefore, of my labors, or of me, 
Aught shall remain, when I removed shall be, 
Let it be that wherein it may be viewed, 
My Maker's image was in me renewed." 

I am sure such would have been Dr. Marsh's desire ; and 
accordingly no one can peruse the volume of his Remains, 



248 CHARACTERISTICS OF 

a volume destined to live after him, and the simple and 
beautiful sketch of his life prefixed to it, without great de- 
light to find a spirit of such deep, unaffected, unalloyed 
piety breathing through it. The wish of the Christian Poet 
is accomplished in this volume, which contains in its por- 
trait of the author the deep, clear lines of the image of 
God renewed, and a body of thought that could only have 
sprung from deep Christian experience. 

There were delightful qualities in Dr. Marsh's character, 
of which I have not spoken, but which all who knew him 
could appreciate even better than they could understand 
his profound scholarship, or his true philosophical worth. 
He had the finest feelings, and an unselfish, unworldly heart; 
a very rare undeviating singleness of purpose, a simplicity 
of character like a child's, a genuine humility of mind, and 
a delightful freedom from all ostentation, all pride, either 
of talent or acquirement. Indeed this latter trait in him 
was very remarkable. It was, in part, the cause of that 
retired calmness, with which, unsolicitous to gain a name, 
and careless what men might say of him, he proceeded as 
on the path of duty, in his philosophical investigations. 
He had much poetical sensibility, and the most affection- 
ate social feelings. He possessed the spirit of true patriot- 
ism, and would to God that such exhibitions among us of 
love to our country, as may be found in his Inaugural Ad- 
dress, were more common among our public and literary 
men. We want men of principle, men of patriotism, 
thinking men, and praying men. 

I congratulate this Institution that it has possessed so 
noble a Christian Philosopher and scholar, as one of its 
presiding spirits ; that so noble a contribution has been 
made to our native, original philosophy and literature in 
the volume of his Remains ; that a personal exemplar of 
such disinterested views and holy principles has been before 
the students; that in this volume they have the stamp 
of the character of so pure and simple-hearted, yet pro- 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 249 

found and vigorous-minded a seeker after truth. I rejoice 
in behalf of all our institutions, that there has been such a 
defender of the necessary agency of religious truth in the 
cultivation of the mind ; such an asserter of the only foun- 
dation of permanence and stedfastness, in the Divine Word, 
and the religious principle. Our republic is safe, if every- 
where the guardians of our youth, the teachers of the minds 
and hearts of our children, may but be imbued with such 
views of truth and duty. The Spirit of God attends such 
views, so inculcated, and we believe ever will ; nor has the 
importance of such teachings, in every direction, as the 
Spirit of God can consistently accompany, such as will co- 
operate and not conflict with his divine influences, ever 
been sufficiently considered. 

The memory of Dr. Marsh's great and profound attain- 
ments, his deep piety and learning, his delightful simplicity 
and purity of soul, would have long remained fresh with 
those who knew him, even if no fruits of his genius had 
been left after him. To many who loved him, or who 
sought his kindness and his guidance, he was so familiar 
and affectionate a friend, that he left them almost unaware 
that he was a great man ; so little is genuine simplicity of 
character understood or valued as an attribute of greatness. 
Indeed, it is one of those qualities which the great world do 
not understand at all, and which, I had almost said, men 
can see only by not looking at it, but by being made par- 
takers of it ; it being indefinable, omnipresent as an atmos- 
phere, and making its impression unconsciously upon the 
soul. Dr. Marsh's friends knew him as the good man, and 
the sense of his goodness became one with, and familiarized 
the impression of his greatness. They loved him as the 
good man, and he was, indeed, a rare and precious example 
of the union of the child-like Christian with the profound 
Philosopher. 

His reputation abroad is established by fruits of his 
labors, that cannot die ; but far better is the fragrant 

11* 



250 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

memory of his goodness at home ; far better the assurance 
that there where he was best known, he was most appre- 
ciated, revered, beloved, lamented. While we remember 
his wisdom, and dwell upon his lovely and attractive qual- 
ities this day, let us beware lest our regret that God has 
taken him away so early, prevent or diminish our gratitude, 
that we have been permitted to enjoy his presence, his ex- 
ample, his instructions, so long. And let us remember, 
that though God may not have moulded us in so peculiar 
a constitution, of so fine and exquisite materials, as that 
we might aspire or attain to Dr. Marsh's intellectual great- 
ness, yet by divine grace it is both our privilege and duty 
to be all possessors of his goodness, in being made partakers 
of the holiness of God in Christ. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER* 



Geologists tell us, somewhat quaintly, that great and 
inexhaustible springs are found in connection with what 
they call faults, that is, breaks in the continuity of the 
rocks. There must be these breaks in the strata, and if it 
were not for this benevolent arrangement of Providence, 
there had been neither running fountains nor rivers, but 
sluggish stagnant pools. A powerful spring is not to be 
found but in connection with the existence of a great fault. 
The despotic crust of the earth must be broken up, before 
its living fountains of waters can gush in freedom to the 
surface. There is an instructive analogy in all this. 

An Ecclesiastical Despotism would keep the intellectual 
and moral world without faults, that is, without freedom : 
it would circle the globe with the dead, hard, rocky crust 
and tetter of an enforced religious uniformity ; it would 
have no spontaneous, powerful springs breaking out and 
running freely to the ocean. But God's benevolent power 
interposes, and breaks up the despotic continuity, and gives 
us springs. The strata of establishments being pierced and 
rent, there are no longer stagnant pools, but deep, living 
fountains. 

The analogy might be extended into something like an 
argument for the necessity and usefulness of various de- 

* The Life and Correspondence of John Foster. Edited by J. E. Ryland. 
With notices of Mr. Foster as a Preacher and a Companion, by John Shep- 
pard, author of " Thoughts on Devotion," etc., etc. In two volumes. New 
York, Wiley & Putnam, 161 Broadway, 1846. — Biblical Repository. 



252 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

nominations in the Church of Christ. These things are 
not necessarily the result of sectarianism, but of freedom ; 
and God makes use of these faults, even if we admitted 
them to be, not merely in the geological, but moral sense 
of the term, faults, — for the production of vastly greater 
good than ever there could have been without them. They 
are not faults, but blessings ; and though men may abuse 
them, they are the assurance and the safeguard of spiritual 
freedom. 

Of the English minds that have departed from our world 
within a few years, none have excited a deeper interest, or 
wielded for a season a loftier power, than John Foster and 
Robert Hall. They were both triumphant instances of the 
superiority of intellect, and the homage that will be paid to 
it, over all circumstance and mere external distinction. 
One of the most obvious reflections that rises in the mind 
of a thoughtful observer of the greatness and power of such 
intellect, after the first analysis and admiration of its ele- 
ments, may be that it was a possession and result of what 
is called the voluntary system. These men were two of 
the " Intellectual Incas" of their race. In the two together, 
there were combined nearly all the grand qualities that 
ever go to make up minds of the highest order ; severity 
and affluence, keenness and magnificence, simplicity and 
sublimity of thought ; ruggedness, power, and elaborate 
beauty and exquisiteness of style ; precision and splendor 
of language ; condensed energy, fire, and diffusive richness 
of imagination ; originality, independence, and perfect 
classical elegance ; comprehensiveness and accuracy ; no- 
bleness of feeling, intense hatred of oppression, Christian 
humility, childlike simplicity. 

And yet there were greater differences between them 
than there were similarities. In some respects their minds 
were of quite an opposite mould. Hall's mind was more 
mathematical than Foster's, and he was distinguished for 
his power of abstract speculation, and his love and habit of 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 253 

reasoning. The tenor of Foster's mind was less argument- 
ative, but more absolute, more intuitive, more rapidly and 
thoroughly observant. 

The impression of power is greater from the mind of 
Foster than of Hall. On this account, and for its emi- 
nently suggestive properties, Foster's general style, both of 
thinking and writing, is much to be preferred ; though 
Hall's has the most sustained and elaborate beauty. Yet 
the word elaborate is not strictly applicable to Hall's style, 
which is the natural action of his mind, the movement, not 
artificial, nor supported by effort, in which his thoughts 
arranged themselves with the precision and regularity of a 
Roman cohort. Hall's was a careful beauty of expression, 
his carefulness and almost fastidiousness of taste being a 
second nature to him ; Foster's was a careless mixture of 
ruggedness and beauty, the ruggedness greatly predomi- 
nating. Hall's style is too constantly, too uniformly reg- 
ular ; it becomes monotonous ; it is like riding or walking 
a vast distance over a level macadamized road ; a difficult 
mountain would be an interval of relief. We feel the need 
of something to break up the uniformity, and startle the 
mind and we would like here and there to pass through an 
untrodden wilderness, or a gloomy forest, or to have some 
unexpected solemn apparition rise before us. There is 
more of the romantic in Foster than in Hall, and Foster's 
style is sometimes thickset with expressions that sparkle 
with the electric fire of imagination. 

Hall's mind, in the comparison of the two, is more like 
an inland lake, in which you can see, though many fathoms 
deep, the clear white sand, and the smallest pebbles on the 
bottom. Foster's is rather like the Black Sea in commo- 
tion. Hall gives you more of known truth, with inimitable 
perspicuity and happiness of arrangement ; Foster sets 
your own mind in pursuit of truth, fills you with longings 
after the unknown, leads you to the brink of frightful 
precipices. There is something such a difference between 



254 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

the two, as between Raphael the sociable angel, relating 
to Adam in his bower, the history of creation, and Michael, 
ascending with him the mountain, to tell him what shall 
happen from his fall. 

Hall's mind is like a royal garden, with rich fruits, and 
overhanging trees in vistas; Foster's is a stern, wild, 
mountainous region, likely to be the haunt of banditti. 
As a preacher, Hall must have been altogether superior to 
Foster in the use and application of ordinary important 
evangelical truth, " for reproof, correction, and instruction 
in righteousness." But Foster probably sometimes reached 
a grander style, and threw upon his audience sublimer 
illustrations and masses of thought. Foster was not suc- 
cessful as a preacher ; his training and natural habits were 
unfortunate for that ; and the range of thought, in which 
his mind spontaneously moved, was too far aloof from 
men's common uses, abilities of perception, tastes and dis- 
position. But Hall was doubtless one of the greatest 
preachers that ever lived. Yet there were minds that 
would prefer Foster, and times at which all the peculiar 
qualities of his genius would be developed in a grander 
combination of sublimity and power. As a general thing, 
Hall must have been more like Paul preaching at Athens 
in a Roman toga ; Foster, like John the Baptist in the 
wilderness, with a leathern girdle about his loins, eating 
locusts and wild honey. He speaks of one of his own 
sermons, which a man would give much to have heard ; 
we can imagine some of its characteristics. It was on the 
oath of the angel, with one foot upon the sea, and another 
on the land, swearing that Time should be no longer ; and 
his own mind was in a luminous, winged state of freedom 
and fire, that seemes to have surprised himself; but no 
record of the sermon is preserved. 

The vigor and uptwisting convolutions of Foster's style 
are the results simply of the strong workings of the 
thought, and not of any elaborate artificial formation. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 255 

For though he labored upon his sentences, with unexam- 
pled interest and care, after his thoughts had run them in 
their own original mould, they were always the creation 
of the thought, and not a mould prepared for it. The 
thought had always the living law of its external form 
within it. We know of scarce another example in 
English literature, where so much beauty, precision, and 
yet genuine and inveterate originality are combined. It 
is like the hulk of a ship made out of the smoothed knees 
of knotty oak. 

There is a glow of life in such a style, and not merely 
quiet beauty, whether elaborate or natural, that is like the 
glow in the countenance of a healthy man, after a rapid 
walk in a clear frosty morning. But it sometimes reminds 
you of a naked athletic wrestler, struggling to throw his 
adversary, all the veins and muscles starting out in the 
effort. Foster's style is like the statue of Laocoon writh- 
ing against the serpent : Hall's reminds you more of the 
Apollo of the Vatican. The difference was the result of 
the intense effort with which Foster's mind wrought out 
and condensed, in the same process, its active meditations. 
Everywhere it gives you the impression of power at work, 
and his illustrations themselves seem to be hammered on 
the anvil. It gives you the picture he has drawn of him- 
self, or his biographer for him, in the attitude of what he 
called pumping. At Brearly Hall he used to try and im- 
prove himself in composition, by " taking paragraphs from 
different writers and trying to remodel them, sentence by 
sentence, into as many forms of expression as he possibly 
could. His posture on these occasions was to sit with a 
hand on each knee, and moving his body to and fro, he 
would remain silent for a considerable time, till his inven- 
tion in shaping his materials had exhausted itself. This 
process he used to call pumping" Foster's style is the 
very image of a mind working itself to and fro, with in- 
ward intensity. 



256 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

The characteristics of power and rugged thought in 
Foster, are admirably set forth in some of his own images. 
Speaking in his journal of a certain individual's discourse, 
he says, " he has a clue of thread of gold in his hand, and 
he unwinds for you ell after ell ; but give me the man who 
will throw the clue at once, and let me unwind it, and 
then show in his hand another ready to follow." 

He speaks of the great deficiency of what may be called 
conclusive writing and speaking. " How seldom we feel 
at the end of the paragraph or discourse, that some- 
thing is settled and done. It lets our habit of thinking and 
feeling just be as it was. It rather carries on a parallel 
to the line of the mind, at a peaceful distance, than fires 
down a tangent to smite across it." Foster always smote 
across the mind. 

" Many things," says he, " may descend from the sky 
of truth, without deeply striking and interesting men; as 
from the cloudy sky, rain, snow, &c, may descend without 
exciting ardent attention ; it must be large hailstones, the 
sound of thunder, torrent rain, and the lightning's flash ; 
analogous to these must be the ideas and propositions, 
which strike men's minds." Foster's own writings are 
eminently thus exciting. And it may be said of him, as 
he remarked of Lord Chatham, speaking of the absence of 
argumentative reasoning in his speeches; "he struck, as 
by intuition, directly on the results of reasoning, as a 
common shot strikes the mark, without your seeing its 
course through the air as it moves towards its object." But 
Foster thought, and reasoned in thinking, most intensely 
and laboriously ; it was not mere intuition that has filled 
his pages with such condensed results. 

Foster and Hall were both men of great independence 
of mind ; but Hall's independence was not combined with 
so great a degree of originality, and it received more gently 
into itself in acquiescence the habitudes of society, and the 
characteristics of other minds. Foster's independence was 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 257 

that of bare truth ; he hated the frippery of circumstance, 
the throwing of truth upon external support. He would 
have it go for no more than it was worth. And anything 
like the imposition of an external ceremonial, he could not 
endure. He went so far as to wish that everything cere- 
monial and sacerdotal could be cleared out of our religious 
economy. He wanted nothing at all to come between the 
soul of man and free unmingled truth. The hearty con- 
viction of truth, and the pure acting from it, was what he 
required. He abhorred all manner of intolerance with such 
vehemence and intensity of hatred, that if he could have 
had a living Nemesis for the retribution of crimes not pun- 
ished by human law, it would have been for that. He 
hated everything that tempted man to dissemble, to seem 
or assume what he was not. He hated oppression in every 
form. He hated a state-established hierarchy, as u infinitely 
pernicious to Christianity." 

We have in these volumes a record of the life and cor- 
respondence of this most original and powerful mind ; yet 
it was a mind in some respects strangly constructed, or 
rather, we should say, strangely self-disciplined, and in 
some respects out of order for want of self-discipline. Look- 
ing through the whole seventy years and more of Foster's 
life, and remembering the magnificent intellectual endow- 
ments with which it pleased God to create him, and the 
almost uninterrupted health and comparative leisure en- 
joyed for nearly fifty years, there will seem to have been by 
him but little accomplished, there will seem to have been 
almost a waste of power. We might, in some respects, 
compare Foster with Coleridge ; in respect of originality 
and power of intellect, they were very much alike ; not 
so in variety, comprehensiveness, and profoundness of eru- 
dition ; for while Coleridge's acquisitions were vast and va- 
ried, Foster's were much rather limited. But both were 
blest with transcendent powers of mind and grand oppor- 
tunities, and yet accomplished comparatively little ; and a 



258 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

severe censor might say, are instances of a lamentable dis- 
use of intellect. Taking Coleridge's miserable health into 
view, and the fact that he was not, like Foster, at an early 
period brought under the impulse of true religion, we ought 
perhaps to say, that of the two, Coleridge accomplished the 
most. But taking the character of Foster's efforts into 
consideration, their more immediate bearing on men's high- 
est interests must incline us to put the adjudged superiority 
of amount to his score. 

The development of character and opinion in these vol- 
umes is intensely interesting and instructive ; so is the dis- 
play and observance of influences and causes forming and 
directing opinion ; so, likewise is the struggle between con- 
science and habit, between grandeur of impulse and judg- 
ment, conflicting with native and habitual indolence and 
procrastination. There was, in the first place, a strong, 
peculiar, obstinate, iron mould, which might have made 
the man, under certain circumstances, as hinted in one of 
Foster's own Essays, a Minos or a Draco ; but which, had 
it been filled with apostolic zeal in the love of Christ and 
of souls, would have made almost another apostle. There 
were tendencies to deep and solemn thought, and to great 
wrestlings of the intellect and spirit, which, brought under 
the full influence of the " powers of the world to come," 
and developed in the intense benevolence of a soul by faith 
freed from condemnation, and habitually communing with 
God in Christ, would have given as great a spiritual mas- 
tery over tills world as any human being could well be 
conceived to exercise. But for this purpose there must 
have been a holy and deep baptism in the Word of God, 
an unassailable faith in, and most humble acquiescence 
with, and submission to, its dictates ; a familiarity with it 
as the daily food of the soul, and experience of it, as of a 
fire in one's bones, admitting no human speculation to put it 
out ; no theory of mere human opinion, or feelings, or imagi- 
nation, to veil, or darken or make doubtful its realities. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 259 

Now the want of this kind of familiarity with the Scrip- 
tures, this profound study and experience of them; this 
unhesitating reception of them as the infallible Word of 
God ; may have been the secret of some of Fosters great- 
est difficulties. There was nothing but this fixedness in 
God's Word, that could be the helm of a mind of such un- 
usual power and original tendencies. Foster wanted an 
all-controlling faith ; he wanted submission to the Word 
of God as the decisive, supreme, last appeal. Foster's 
character was somewhat like that of Thomas among the 
Apostles ; gloomy tendencies in it, inveterate convolutions 
of opinion, seclusion in its own depths, and sometimes only 
faith enough just to save him from despair. 

He had a strong self-condemning conscience, a clear, 
massive view and powerful conception of human depravity, 
but not an early and accurate view, or powerful sense, of 
the infinite odiousness of sin, as manifested by the divine 
law, the divine holiness, and the divine atonement. He 
had an instinctive, vigorous appreciation of the ignorance, 
crime, and evil in human society, a sense of its misery, and 
a disposition to dwell upon its gloomy shades, which made 
him, as an observer, what Caravaggio or Espagnoletto were 
as painters ; tremendously dark and impressive in his de- 
lineations. But it was quite as much the instinct and 
taste of the painter, as it was the light of the Word of God, 
revealing the depths of Satan. It was the native intensity 
of observation, combined with a saturnine turn of mind, 
and intermingled with revelations of things as they are, 
beneath the light of the Divine Attributes. 

Mr. Foster came early under the power of religious con- 
viction, but evidently not in the happiest manner, and not 
so as to bring him at once thoroughly, heartily, confidingly, 
to Christ. Perhaps there may be traced much of what is 
called legal (at least for a long time), mingled with his 
acceptance of Christ as the only refuge of his soul, or as he 
would sometimes have denominated it, with his views of 



260 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 



the economy of human redemption. There was more of 
the genera] reliance of the mind upon that as an economy, 
than of the personal reliance of the soul upon Christ as a 
Saviour. One cannot but be impressed with the fact of 
the great absence, throughout the whole tenor of his letters, 
his conversations, and the mould of his life and character 
till a late period, — the great absence and want of habitual, 
and even occasional reference to the love of Christ, the claims 
of the cross, the authority of the Word of God, and all that 
is peculiar to the gospel. Perhaps there may have been an 
intentional exclusion of these topics, as trite and technical, 
induced by an extreme of the same feelings with which he 
wrote so severely concerning the customary diction of evan- 
gelical piety, and which passed unawares into a fastidious- 
ness, and almost aversion in his own mind, which became 
habitual. His letters to Miss Saunders at the close of these 
volumes, show how entirely he threw off any such embar- 
rassment, when roused to the work of presenting eternal 
realities to an immortal spirit on the threshold of eternity. 
But from an early period, his disgust at the peculiar diction 
of the gospel, as used by men who seemed to have lost all 
perception of the sublime ideas intended to be conveyed by 
it, may have operated insensibly in the way of a prejudice 
against some of those ideas themselves. 

He had indeed a sense of guilt, which became, at a later 
period, absorbing and powerful ; and a sense of the atone- 
ment, which grew deeper and deeper to the last, with a 
most entire reliance upon it ; but mingled with this, and 
influencing his whole habit of thought and feeling, and even 
of belief, far more than he would himself have been willing 
to acknowledge, there seems at one time to have been a 
secret unconscious reliance on the hope that the Supreme 
Judge would not be so rigidly severe in the scrutiny of 
mortals, as the terms of the Gospel and the Law imply ; 
so that, instead of relying solely on the merits of Christ, as 
a sinner utterly and forever lost without him, he appeared 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 261 

to rely on the mercy of God as a lenient, compassionate 
Judge, in whose sight an amiable and good life might also 
come between the sinner and the fear of an inexorable judg- 
ment. We think this feeling is plainly to be detected in 
what Foster says of the grounds of his hope in the case of 
his own son. And though in his own case he was always 
gloomily and severely self-accusing, yet it seemed much like 
the same experience in the case of Dr. Johnson, whom Fos- 
ter not a little resembled in some characteristics ; and, as in 
the case of Dr. Johnson, Foster's own personal view of 
Christ, and reliance upon him, and sense of deliverance 
from condemnation, were always greatly dimmed and di- 
minished by the ever-recurring habit of looking for some- 
thing in himself, and in his preparation to meet God, as a 
ground of confidence. A more defective religious experi- 
ence, for a season, in so eminent a Christian Minister, we 
think is rarely to be found on record. Indeed, compared 
with men like Newton, Scott, Ryland, Hill, with Mr. Hall, 
and some others, either but little preceding or quite con- 
temporary with Foster, he appears sometimes almost like 
a strong-minded, intellectual but half-enlightened Pagan, in 
the comparison. 

This defective early experience, and Foster's strong an- 
tipathy to the technicals of evangelical piety, especially if 
approximating in his view in any manner to cant, together 
with his want of continued, thorough, systematic or scrip- 
tural study of theology, acted and reacted on each other. 
And at one time he was so disastrously under the power of 
a tendency to rationalism, and to a choice of what to be- 
lieve irrespective of the Scriptures, that he seems to have 
come very near to the slough of the Socinian system. He 
had a strong corrective in the piety and influence of his 
friend, the Rev. Mr. Hughes, to whose correspondence and 
conversation he evidently owed much. But he had great- 
repugnance to anything like a " party of systematics," and 
he carried his natural independence and hatred of restraint 



262 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 



to such a degree, that he would even have dissolved the 
very institution of churches, with every ordinance in them, 
and have had nothing on earth but public worship and the 
Lord's Supper. This peculiarity was akin to his own per- 
sonal reception of Christianity as a general economy, unac- 
companied by a sufficiently close and scriptural study of 
its elements with a sufficiently entire and sole reliance upon 
Christ. 

Bat we find ourselves, in our survey of the characteristics 
of a great and powerful mind, glancing at defective points 
first, which ought not to be ; and we must not proceed, 
without the outlines of the life and opinions of this remark- 
able man as presented in his letters and biography. In life 
and character he was most lovely, and original in his sim- 
plicity and loveliness ; and this, with his grand superiority 
of thought and style to almost the whole range of modern 
English literature, makes his whole genius and moral ex- 
cellence so striking, that it seems an ungrateful task to 
dwell even upon speculative defects. In this mine of 
precious metal, the discovery of a vein of very different and 
contradictory material compels us to a close examination of 
it, and of the hidden causes that might have produced it. 
Many are the laborers that have been working in this mine, 
and bringing out whole ingots of gold for the manufacture 
of their own pots and cups, and vessels, who never dreamed, 
till recently, that there was anything but gold in its deep, 
curious, far-reaching seams of treasure. We shall find that 
" an enemy hath done this," and that it is one of the most 
memorable examples of his infernal and partially successful 
enginery. 

Mr. Foster was born in 1770. His father was a sub- 
stantial farmer and weaver, a strong-minded man and 
Christian. From early childhood John Foster was re- 
served and thoughtful, constitutionally pensive, full of 
emotion and sentiment, but of " an infinite shyness" in the 
revelation of his feelings. As early as the age of twelve 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 263 

years he expresses himself as having had " a painful sense 
of an awkward but entire individuality." He possessed by 
nature an intensely vivid power of association, combined 
with great strength and vividness of imagination. He was 
endowed with an exquisite sensibility to the loveliness and 
meaning of the world of external scenery. There was 
indeed in him such a remarkable combination of all the 
requisites for a great poet, that it seems almost strange 
that the qualities of his being had not run in that mould. 
He would have made the most thoughtful poet that ever 
lived. 

No man that has ever read it can have forgotten the ex- 
quisitely beautiful passage on the influence of nature over 
the sensibility and imagination, in the Essay on a man's 
writing memoirs of himself. There are similar passages 
in Mr. Foster's Review of the Philosophy of Nature. His 
own mind was developed under the power of deep impulses 
from the richness, grandeur and beauty of the creation, and 
there was within him " an internal economy of ideas and 
sentiments, of a character and a color correspondent to the 
beauty, vicissitude, and grandeur, which continually press 
upon the senses." u Sweet Nature !" exclaims he, in one 
of his letters, " I have conversed with her with inexpres- 
sible luxury ; I have almost worshipped her. A flower, a 
tree, a bird, a fly, has been enough to kindle a delightful 
train of ideas and emotions, and sometimes to elevate the 
mind to sublime conceptions. When the Autumn stole on, 
I observed it with the most vigilant attention, and felt a 
pensive regret to see those forms of beauty, which tell that 
all the beauty is going soon to depart." For this reason 
he would sometimes come back from his walks, after wit- 
nessing in the fields some of the flowers, with which Nature 
prophecies the closing season of their loveliness, and say in 
a tone of sadness, " I have seen a fearful sight to-day ; I've 
seen a buttercup !" Though he took great delight in 
flowers, he would not often gather them, because he would 



264 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

not shorten their existence ; he loved to see them live out 
their little day. 

The youth of this being of such exquisite and original 
genius was spent mainly in weaving. Till his fourteenth 
year he worked at spinning wool to a thread by the band- 
wheel, and for three years afterwards he wove double stuffs 
and lastings. Strange indeed ! for meanwhile his passion 
for learning was such, that he would sometimes shut him- 
self up in the barn for hours, and study what books he 
could get hold of, and then was tied to the loom again. 
Thus he was self-educated, sparingly, and not very favor- 
ably, until his seventeenth year, when he became a mem- 
ber of the Baptist Church, under the pastorship of the ven- 
erable Dr. Fawcett, under whose directions he prosecuted 
his theological studies for a season at Br early Hall. 

In his Essay on a man's writing memoirs of himself, 
Mr. Foster has remarked, in reference to the effect of much 
and various reading on the mind in its development, that 
" it is probable that a very small number of books will have 
the pre-eminence in our mental history. Perhaps your 
memory will recur promptly to six or ten that have con- 
tributed more to your present habit of feeling and thought 
than all* the rest together. And here it may be observed 
that when a few books of the same kind have pleased us 
emphatically, they too often form an almost exclusive taste, 
which is carried through all future reading, and is pleased 
only with books of that kind." His own taste in reading 
carried him much into the region of the romantic, the 
imaginative and the wonderful in history and character. 
He loved to read books of travels, and always drew illus- 
trations with great force and beauty, from his excursions 
through this kind of literature. On a comparison of his 
correspondence with a volume of his Essays, a most strik- 
ing resemblance will be found between the habits of mind, 
the trains of thinking, reading and observation, and the 
prevailing character of the feelings, developed in the one 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 265 

and in the other. No man ever drew more from himself, 
in the composition of a great work, or turned more directly 
into illustration of his subjects the influences that had 
formed his own being and opinions, or more truly, though 
perhaps unintentionally, set down the great features of his 
own nature, than Mr. Foster in the writing of his Essays. 
Milton's Paradise Lost is not more stamped with the grand- 
eur of his own mind and feelings, and the sublimity of his 
imagination, than Foster's Essays with his. Indeed the 
Essays occupy a place in that department of English Lit- 
erature almost as separate and supreme as the Paradise 
Lost does in the department of its poetry. In power of 
thought and style they are unrivalled, unequalled. 

Young's Night Thoughts occupied a conspicuous place 
among the books which attracted Foster's early notice, and 
under the influence of which the characteristics of his mind 
were much formed and developed. The strain of gloomy 
and profound sublimity in that poem suited perfectly the 
original bent of his intellect, the character of his imagina- 
gination, and his tendencies of feeling, so that it wrought 
upon him with a powerful effect. It even had much to do 
with the moulding of his style, as well as the sustaining 
and enriching of his native sublimity of sentiment. Al- 
most all Foster's pages are tinged with the sombre, thought- 
ful grandeur of the night- watcher ; they reflect the lonely 
magnificence of midnight and the stars. And there are 
images in Young, which describe the tenor of Foster's 
meditative life, occupied, so much of it, with intense con- 
templations on the future life, in pacing to and fro upon 
the beach of that immortal sea, which brought us hither. 
For no one ever saw him but he seemed to 

l - Walk thoughtful on the solemn, silent shore 
Of that vast ocean we must sail so soon." 

His love and admiration of Young's Night Thoughts he car- 
ried with him through life. Of Milton he remarked that 

12 



266 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER, 

" Milton's genius might harmoniously have mingled with 
the angels that announced the Messiah to be come, or that 
on the spot and at the moment of his departure predicted 
his coming again." He held in great admiration the 
powerful mind of Johnson. His Essays, as well as some 
of his Reviews, are such a proof of the discriminating 
power, taste, and admirable thought and illustration with 
which he would pass through the range of English and 
Classical literature, especially as a Christian critic, that 
they make one wish that he had given to the world a vol- 
ume on the principles of criticism. 

But it should have been in the shape of original investi- 
gations ; for Mr. Foster's Reviews, though full of profound 
thought and fine illustrations, are not, on the whole, 
equal to his Essays. He was limited by the stufif. Nothing 
imposed upon him as a task, by a subject presented from 
abroad, was equal to what grew out of his own mind. 
That was a region of thought; affluence and originality 
of thought ; but it was spontaneous, and the forms it must 
take should be so, too, if they would exhibit the whole 
power and originality of the author. Besides, his subjects 
were often not congenial, and this was a circumstance 
which made a great difference in the workings of his genius, 
and of course in its productions. The mind may have 
vast original stores and capacities ; but every talismanic 
inscription is not the one that can open or command them. 
The silk- worm weaves from itself, but it feeds on mulber- 
ries ; it could not produce silk from rose leaves or the 
oak. The aliments of genius are almost as important as 
its elements. 

The range of Mr. Foster's theological studies does not 
seem to have been comprehensive, nor does he seem to have 
cared to have it such ; hating party systems to such a 
degree as to be carried almost into the opposite extreme. 
Some instructive hints as to unfavorable early associations 
connecting themselves with the system of Evangelical truth 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 267 

are to be found in the second and third of his letters on the 
aversion of men of taste to Evangelical religion, from 
which one may conjecture similar unfortunate influences 
to have operated on Mr. Foster's mind early in life. After 
he had finished his course under Dr. Fawcett at Brearly 
Hall, he came under the tutorship of Mr. Hughes, the 
founder and Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, in the Baptist Seminary at Bristol. Mr. Hughes's 
mental vigor was of " such a nature," to use the expres- 
sion of Foster himself, " as to communicate a kind of con- 
tagion," while his piety was deep and fervent. 

Foster early speaks in several of his letters of an " exces- 
sive constitutional indolence, which is unwilling to pur- 
chase even the highest satisfaction at the price of little 
mental labor." He sometimes w T ished himself " engaged 
in some difficult undertaking, which he must absolutely 
accomplish, or die in the attempt." It was not an aversion 
to the labor of hard thinking, but of writing. It cost him 
severe self-denial and effort to put pen to paper. Dr. 
Johnson used to say, a man can write at any time, if he 
will set himself doggedly to it. All that a mind like 
Johnson's or Foster's needed was the first dogged effort, 
and then the intellectual machinery would move from mere 
excitement. 

Mr. Foster's first regular engagement as a preacher was 
w T ith a small auditory at Newcastle-on-Tyne. There were 
some ten or twelve individuals, who listened to his original 
discourses with breathless interest, but he remained here 
little more than three months, and in 1793 went to preach 
to a Baptist society in Dublin. It was an uncongenial 
situation, and he abandoned it in little more than a year, 
having found his greatest enjoyment while there in attend- 
ing to the children of a charity school, to whom he would 
talk familiarly, and read amusing and instructive books. 
He made an experiment on a classical and mathematical 
school in Dublin, and gave it up after eight or nine months. 



268 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

His opinions on religious subjects were as fluctuating as 
his employments, and at one time he saw no possibility of 
coming to any satisfactory conclusions. He would have 
liked some Arian congregation in want of a preacher, and 
with as little fixedness of opinion and as much uncertainty 
as existed in his own mind, to employ him while he was 
halting. Had he found such a place, we might have had 
in his life a counterpart to the early history of Coleridge. 
What would have exactly gratified him, would have been 
" the power of building a meeting of his own, and without 
being controlled by any man, and without even the exist- 
ence of what is called a church, of preaching gratis to all 
that chose to hear." In this state of mind he had " dis- 
carded the doctrine of eternal punishments." 

Here is something to be marked. We have before us a 
period of some three or four years, from the age of twenty- 
two to twenty-six, during which the opinions, the employ- 
ments, the expectations and intentions of Mr. Foster were 
utterly unsettled. His course of reading was vague, his 
course of study was rambling and not disciplinary ; it was 
neither theological nor literary, but embraced projections 
for both. Sometimes for a year he did not preach at all. 
Sometimes he taught the classics and mathematics. Some- 
times he preached in cleric cloth, sometimes in " tail and 
colored clothes," sometimes of a Saturday evening perused 
Dr. Moore's Journal of a residence in France, and " ad- 
justed some of the exteriors for the morrow," and on Sab- 
bath morning made his sermon in bed, " caught some con- 
siderable ideas," and ascended the pulpit. " I seem nearly 
at a stand with respect to the adjustment of plans for futu- 
rity. Whether I am to be a preacher or not, I cannot 
tell." — " At some moments of life, the world, mankind, re- 
ligion, and eternity, appear to me like one vast scene of 
tremendous confusion, stretching before me far away, and 
closed in shades of the most awful darkness ; — a darkness 
which only the most powerful splendors of Deity can illu- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 269 

mine, and which appears as if they never yet had illumined 
it." 

Now it is during these three or four years, not so much 
of the transition, as of the chaotic state, in Mr. Foster's 
life, that we find, amidst all his uncertainties, one sudden 
and positive declaration, " I have discarded the doctrine 
of eternal punishments?' 1 He adds, "I can avow no opin- 
ion on the peculiar points of Calvinism, for I have none, 
nor see the possibility of forming a satisfactory one." The 
discarded doctrine seems to have been cashiered by Mr. Fos- 
ter with about as little thoughtful investigation, as if he 
had been laying aside an old coat. The sudden announce- 
ment of this negative position is almost the only positive 
thing to be found in these three or four years of his experi- 
ence. He was some twenty-four years of age. If this was 
the manner in which he decided upon the fundamental ar- 
ticles of that Christian System which he was preaching, it 
is manifest that his theological views could have been but 
little worth. This announcement of opinion has an ab- 
ruptness, an isolation, a dislocation from every train of asso- 
ciation and employment, which intimates a hasty prejudice, 
rather than a deliberately-formed conviction. He seems to 
have discarded the clerical dress and the clerical doctrine 
with about the same independence and indifference ; but in 
neither case as an absolute conviction. If, however, his 
denial of this grand prominent feature in the Christian sys- 
tem is to be traced back to this period, it is manifestly a 
denial not based upon any profound or protracted examina- 
tion of the subject. 

Having passed through this period, we find Mr. Foster, 
in 1797, accepting an invitation to become the minister of 
a Baptist Church in Chichester. This is one year after the 
preceding declaration of opinion. After he has been preach- 
ing two years at Chichester, we find him saying to his 
friend Mr. Hughes, that " he holds, he believes, accurately, 
the leading points of Calvinistic faith ; as the corruption 



270 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

of human nature, the necessity of a divine power to change 
it. irresistible grace, the influence of the Spirit, the doctrine 
of the atonement in its most extensive and emphatic 
sense," &c, &c. " My opinions are, in substance, Cal- 
vinistic." It would seem that the moment Mr. Foster be- 
gan to apply himself in earnestness, and with fixedness of 
purpose, to the duties of the ministry, his mind began to 
be settled in the great truths of the gospel. For two years 
and a half, his biographer tells us, he " applied himself with 
greater earnestness than at any former period to his minis- 
terial duties, usually preaching three times on the Sunday, 
and in various ways striving to promote the piety and gen- 
eral improvement of the congregation." The result to him- 
self is full of instruction. No longer left to vague indeter- 
minate musings and readings, the continued effort to teach 
and improve others wrought a salutary correction and de- 
cisiveness in his own convictions. 

His intercourse with his former tutor, Mr. Hughes, was 
of the greatest benefit. The views and facts presented by 
this gentleman were dwelt upon by Mr. Foster with " great 
emotion." In a letter to his parents in 1799, he speaks 
with frankness. " My visit to Mr. Hughes has been of 
great service in respect of my religious feelings. He has 
the utmost degree of evangelic animation, and has inces- 
santly, with affectionate earnestness in his letters, and 
still more in his personal intercourse, acted the monitor on 
this subject. It has not been in vain. I have felt the com- 
manding force of the duty to examine and judge myself 
with a solemn faithfulness. In some measure I have done so, 
and I see that on this great subject I have been wrong. The 
views which my judgment has admitted in respect to the 
gospel in general, and Jesus, the great pre-eminent object 
in it, have not inspired my affections, in that animated, un- 
bounded degree, which would give the energy of enjoyment 
to my personal religion, and apostolic zeal to my ministra- 
tions among mankind. This fact is serious, and moves my 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 271 

deep regrets. The time is come to take on me with stricter 
bonds and more affectionate warmth, the divine disciple- 
ship. I fervently invoke the influences of Heaven, that the 
whole spirit of the gospel may take possession of all my 
soal, and give a new and powerful impulse to my practical 
exertions in the cause of the Messiah." 

" My opinions are more Calvinistic than when I first 
came here ; so much so as to be in direct hostility with 
the leading' principles of belief in this society. The 
greatest part of my views I believe are accurately Calvin- 
istic. My opinion respecting future punishments is an ex- 
ception." 

We shall resume the consideration of this latter point, 
10 a particular examination of the tenor of Mr. Foster's 
mind and writings with reference to it. It was a most 
strange, unaccountable, and to many persons a startling 
announcement, that some of the letters in these volumes 
proved the author of them to have renounced the Scripture 
truth of the endless punishment of the wicked. "We shall 
see how the thing lay in his mind ; how, while his whole 
belief and practical course was evangelical, there was on 
this point a break in the chain ; his convictions kept the 
continuity, while a doubting, inconsistent, and impatient 
logic denied it. It was like an arch kept in its position 
and form without the key-stone, by the frame on which it 
was constructed; that frame being in Fosters mind an 
uninterrupted spiritual conviction and pressure of personal 
guilt and of eternal realities. To see him in company 
with the deniers and scoffers of the eternal sanctions of the 
Divine law, would be as if Abdiel had been found fighting 
by mistake in the army of the fallen angels. 

We have seen his convictions becoming more and more 
Calvinistic. An extract from a letter to Rev. Dr. Fawett, 
in the year 1800, is here in point ; written apparently, in 
part, with reference to the change of opinion noted in the 
letter to his parents. 



272 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

"I receive with pleasure, but not without diffidence of 
myself, your congratulations on a happy revolution of my 
views and feelings. Oh, with what profound regret I re- 
view a number of inestimable years nearly lost to my own 
happiness, to social utility, and to the cause and kingdom 
of Christ ! I often feel like one who should suddenly 
awake to amazement and alarm on the brink of a gloomy 
gulf. I am scarcely able to retrace exactly through the 
mingled dreary shades of the past, the train of circumstan- 
ces and influences which have led me so far astray ; but 
amid solemn reflection, the conviction has flashed upon me 
irresistibly, that I must be fatally wrong. This mournful 
truth has indeed many times partially reached me before, 
but never so decisively, nor to awaken so earnest a desire 
for the full, genuine spirit of a disciple of Jesus. I see 
clearly that my strain of thinking and preaching has not 
been pervaded and animated by the evangelic sentiment, 
nor consequently accompanied by the power of the gospel, 
either to myself or to others. I have not come forward in 
the spirit of Paul, or Peter, or John ; have not counted all 
things but loss, that I might win Christ, and be found in 
him. It is true, indeed, that this kind of sentiment, when 
strongly presented, has always appealed powerfully to both 
my judgment and my heart ; I have yielded rny whole 
assent to its truth and excellence, and often longed to feel 
its heavenly inspiration ; but some malady of the soul has 
still defeated these better emotions, and occasioned a mourn- 
ful relapse into coldness of feeling, and sceptical or un- 
profitable speculation. I wonder as I reflect; and am 
amazed how indifference and darkness could return over a 
mind, which had seen such gleams of heaven. I hope that 
mighty grace will henceforward save me from such infe- 
licity. My habitual affections, however, are still much be- 
low the pitch that I desire. I wish above all things to have 
a continual, most solemn impression of the absolute need 
of the free salvation of Christ for my own soul, and to have 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 273 

a lively faith in him, accompanied with all the sentiments 
of patience, humility, and love. I would be transformed, 
fired with holy zeal ; and henceforth live not to myself, but 
to him that died and rose again. My utmost wish is to be 
a minor apostle ; to be an humble, but active, devoted, he- 
roic servant of Jesus Christ, and in such a character and 
course to minister to the eternal happiness of those within 
my sphere. My opinions are in substance decisively Cal- 
vinistic. I am firmly convinced, for instance, of the doc- 
trines of original sin, predestination, imputed righteousness, 
the necessity of the Holy Spirit's operation to convert the 
mind, final perseverance, &c, &c." 

Such letters as these afford convincing proof that the 
mind of the writer was under the influence of that Divine 
Grace, of which he asserts the necessity in the soul. They 
afford proof equally convincing, of the disastrous nature of 
those tendencies, whatever they may have been, under 
which Mr. Foster found himself " on the brink of a gloomy 
gulf;" and which, as we shall see, continued, notwith- 
standing the endearing openness and meekness with which 
he received the severe suggestions and remonstrances of 
inferior minds, to harass and fetter his spirit. The tracing 
of these causes in their operation, so far as it can be done 
even with any degree of probability, is a matter of much 
importance. 

Yet it seems, we say again, an ungrateful and presump- 
tuous work to analyze the defects or obliquities in the 
religious character of a man of sincere piety, and of such 
vast endowments ; though the picture is before the world, 
and there are reasons for a severe scrutiny of it. It seems 
still more ungrateful to take the ingenuous confession of 
Mr. Foster's own mind, which are in themselves such a 
delightful evidence of genuine childlike humility, in cor- 
roboration of a judgment passed upon his deficiencies. But 
if Mr. Foster had the frankness and humility of a little child, 
he had also an entire freedom from anything like morbid- 

12* 



274 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

ness of conscience ; if he had a perfect ingenuousness of 
character j he had also a strong protection, in his hatred of 
hypocrisy and cant, against overdrawing any of the deficien- 
cies of that character ; he would be likely to set down 
things just as they are, or at least just as they appeared to 
him on discovering them. We use the freedom of those, 
who have followed Foster's intellect as a guiding star ; 
who well remember the time when, as if some gorgeous 
angel had come to them to lead them on in paths of truth 
never before opened, they remained as it were spellbound 
by the grandeur of the vision. And now, if the same 
angel beckons them on towards a tract of error, they are 
right, if they scrutinize most severely the elements of an 
intellectual and spiritual development, assuming so un- 
expectedly such a direction ; elements, every one -of which 
they were prepared at one time to take even on trust as 
well-nigh perfect. 

In 1799, Mr. Foster wrote a deeply-interesting letter to 
his friend Hughes, in acknowledgment of the justness and 
kindness of a preceding letter, which had been painful to 
him by the severity of its friendly strictures. " I know it 
too well," he says, " that for a long course of time, during 
which I have felt an awful regard for religion, my mind 
has not been under the full immediate impression of its 
most interesting character, the most gracious of its influ- 
ences, its evangelic beams. I have not, with open face, 
beheld the transforming glory of the Lord. I have, as it 
were, worshipped in the outer courts of the temple, and 
not habitually dwelt in that sacred recess, where the God 
of love reveals all himself in Jesus Christ. And is it diffi- 
cult to believe that in advancing towards a better state, I 
may be accompanied awhile by some measure of the defects 
and the shades contracted in that gloomy sojourn, which I 
must forever deplore ?" 

The state of his mind, while in that gloomy sojourn, 
may be partially gathered from a letter in 1798. He speaks 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 275 

of " the whole hemisphere of contemplation as inexpressibly 
strange and mysterious. It is cloud pursuing cloud, forest 
after forest, Alps upon Alps. It is in vain to declaim 
against scepticism ; I feel with an emphasis of conviction, 
wonder and regret, that all things are almost enveloped in 
shade, that many things are covered with thickest darkness, 
that the number of things to which certainty belongs is 
small. I hope to enjoy the sunshine of the other world. 
One of the very few things that appear to me not doubtful, 
is the truth of Christianity in general ; some of the evi- 
dences of which I have lately seen most ably stated by 
Archdeacon Paley, in his work on the subject." 

This is surely a sad state for a preacher of the Gospel. 
Say what you will of it, it argues a most defective religious 
experience, the defects and shades of which did indeed ac- 
company Mr. Foster, in some degree, all through life. It 
could not have been otherwise, without a great and power- 
ful change, and he was not entirely delivered from the 
malady of which he speaks in those letters. His mind was 
veiled ; the shades remainded upon it. 

But if Mr. Foster had passed effectually and thoroughly 
through such a state of mind as this, and had come out 
from it, by the grace of God, in reliance submissively upon 
his Word, into the clear light of the Cross, and of the love 
of Christ in the soul, it would have been to him a discipline 
of incomparable worth. If he had tor est led out, as Bunyan 
did from his conflicts, with no possibility of peace, and a 
determination of having no peace, but in Christ and in God's 
Word, it had been an element of power and light. But 
instead of this, he never entirely passed out of it into the 
clear light ; he carried the involving folds of this gloom, in 
which sometimes he seemed to take a grim pleasure in 
wrapping himself, even to the end of life. He was always 
in some respect in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, 
and exclaiming with Job, " He hath set darkness in my 
path." He never seems to have felt, as such a strong 



276 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER, 

mind ought to have done, the amazing importance of being 
settled concerning the particular revelations of the Chris- 
tian religon, by an unhesitating reception and most prayer- 
ful study of the Word of God. And his mind seemed 
sometimes obstinately to turn away from, and forget, the 
light shed as a flood from that Word upon the future dis- 
pensation of our being, to lose itself in conjectures, mys- 
terious, solemn, awful, as if everything beyond the grave 
were absolutely unknown to us. His feeling in reference 
to the future world was much like that of Job, " Before I 
go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness, 
and the shadow of death ; a land of darkness as darkness 
itself, and of the shadow of death without any order, and 
where the light is as darkness." Certainly his prevailing 
mood was much more this, than that of Paul ; and his 
prevailing mode of reasoning on some points was rather 
that of a mind under the dimness of the old dispensation 
than the glory of the new. 

He speaks, about this same period, in a letter to Mr. 
Fawcett, of his having " for a long while past fully felt 
the necessity of dismissing subtle speculations and dis- 
tinctions, and of yielding an humble, cordial assent to the 
mysterious truth, just as and because the scriptures declare 
it, without inquiring, how can these things be ?" But it 
is evident that in some respects he never did this, and that 
his mind was continually relapsing from the health and 
definiteness of divine revelation, into a state of vague, 
solemn, awful wonder, as to what he called the absolute 
unknown beyond the grave, the mysteries of that dread 
eternal hereafter. As an instance of this state of mind we 
may take the following paragraph from one of his letters, 
written even so late as the year 1834. 

"It does always appear to me very unaccountable (among 
indeed so many other inexplicable things), that the state of 
the soul after death should be so completely veiled from our 
serious inquisitiveness. That in some sense it is proper 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 277 

that it should be so, needs not be said. But is not the 
sense in which it is so, the same sense in which it is proper 
there should be punitive circumstances, privations, and 
inflictions, in this our sinful state ? For one knows not 
how to believe that some revelation of that next stage of 
our existence would not be more influential to a right pro- 
cedure in this first, than such an absolute unknown. It is 
true that a profound darkness, which we know we are des- 
tined ere long to enter, and soon to find ourselves in an 
amazing light, is a striking object of contemplation. But 
the mind still, again and again falls back from it dis- 
appointed and uninstructed, for want of some defined 
forms of reality to seize, retain, and permanently occupy 
it. In default of revelation, we have to frame our conjec- 
tures on some principle of analogy, which is itself arbitrary, 
and without any means of bringing it to the test of reason." 
Now one is tempted to exclaim, in perusing such a pas- 
sage, Can the man who writes this have ever seriously read 
the Scriptures ? It may be said that Foster was not here 
speaking of the general doctrine of a future state of rewards 
and punishments, but of the default of any definite knowl- 
edge of our state immediately after death. But even thus, 
such language is absolutely unjustifiable on the ground of 
the information contained in the Word of God, and would 
seem totally inconsistent with a firm faith in the truth, or 
a serious examination of the meaning, of our blessed Lord's 
own declarations as to what takes place after death. There 
is no such thing as this absolute unknown, of which Foster 
speaks ; on the contrary, the blank is so definitely filled up, 
the mystery is so much cleared away, that our Lord sol- 
emnly declares to us that if men will not believe for what 
is already written, neither would they be persuaded, though 
one rose from the dead. A sentence which stands in sin- 
gular and palpable contradiction against what Mr. Foster 
remarks about some revelation being more influential. He 
has introduced a similar train of reflections in one of his 



278 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

Essays, but with a very different impression. But he seems 
to have been constantly wishing for something more clear 
and convincing than we have in the Word of God, in re- 
gard to the realities of the Eternal World, and constantly 
underrating the degree and decisiveness of that information ; 
or what is worse, shrinking back from its admission, and 
dreading its plain and direct interpretation. Nothing can 
be more unfortunate than such a state of mind in regard to 
the Scriptures, especially for a preacher of the Gospel ; and 
few things would render a teacher more unfitted for the in- 
struction of others, in regard to some of the most essential 
points in the system of revealed truth. 

His state of mind was somewhat like that of a disastrous 
eclipse, and all things looked in it as the vegetation and 
forms of the world look in an eclipse of the sun at noonday. 
It seemed as if, while he was advancing forward to the 
knowledge of Divine things, the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ, and to the possession of 
convictions and expanded views and a celestial experience, 
which would have armed him as with the sword of Michael 
against the powers of darkness, there had been a strange 
permission given to those powers to stop him. And they 
said, We cannot take from him what he has gained, but 
we will fasten him there ; he shall henceforward view all 
things only from his present limited point of view, and here 
we will bring to bear upon him all our suggestions of mys- 
teries and difficulty, and if we cannot turn him from his 
integrity, we will make the very anguish and utterance of 
his uncertainties the means of shaking others. And he 
shall, at the least, never make any onset upon our king- 
dom, notwithstanding the towering pride of his intellect, 
and the grace of God in him. And in effect, Foster did 
for a season stop. He seems for a long time to have made 
little advance in religious knowledge, and little in religious 
zeal. His life was always pure, his nature noble, and his 
spirit was always hovering over the awful gulf of futurity, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 279 

and you might see a gloomy and terrible light reflected from 
the wings of the soul, as you followed its excursions ; but 
you could seldom see it in the clear serene of heaven. You 
saw not the shining light shining more and more, unto the 
perfect day, but a path of involutions and anxieties, some- 
times indeed running in that shining light, but sometimes 
crossing it at right angles and plunging into the darkness. 
His feelings were of an exquisite kindness and tenderness ; 
his sympathies were strong and deep, notwithstanding his 
apparently misanthropic aloofness from society. His hu- 
mility was genuine, his personal reliance upon Christ, to- 
wards the close of life, delightfully entire and satisfactory; 
and yet for a long period there was doubt and gloom. 

The position of his mind seemed like that of a man in 
the dark, confident that he is near some vast, solid obstacle, 
but not daring to advance. He had a spiritual sense or 
instinct of the realities of the future world, like the feeling 
which makes a blind man know that things are near him, 
even without touching them. And he trembled at times, 
as a bewildered traveller might stand and tremble in the 
darkness, when convinced by the deep roar of falling waters 
near and below him, that he is on the brink of some tre- 
mendous verge, where he dare not stir one step without a 
guide. What avail would it be for him in such a case, to 
shout to others, who might be in the same position, There 
is nothing to fear, the gulf is not bottomless, and if you fall, 
you will come up unhurt ! Why fear for thyself, O man, 
if thou art so sure of the divine benevolence at the bottom 
of this fall to others ? This fear is the sacred instinct of 
the soul in the near presence of the reality. Though the 
soul does not see, or will not see, the form of the reality in 
the definite light of the Divine Word, yet it feels the reality 
almost as if it touched it. 

It was under the power of this feeling that Foster lived 
and wrote. His very letters issue from the pressure of it ; 
every coinage of his mind bears its stamp. He could not 



280 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

help it, any more than he could the sense of his immortality. 
There was always in his soul a sense of vast, dread, illim- 
itable retribution in eternity, to which all sinful beings 
are advancing, and from which the only escape is in the 
mercy of God in Christ Jesus to those only who in this 
world avail themselves of it. He felt this ; he could not, 
did not, reason about it ; he felt it. He questioned it, and 
yet he felt it. He shrunk back from it, and yet he felt it. 
It was with him by day and by night, an ever-brooding 
power and presence from the Eternal World, a truth that 
woke to perish never, M a master o'er a slave ; a presence 
that was not to be put by." Beneath the pressure of ques- 
tioned realities in the invisible world he wrote all his works, 
and they have, consequently, some of them, an overpower- 
ing solemnity. For he could not put off his heritage ; his 
soul would be weighed down beneath it, notwithstanding 
all evasive doubts and shrinkings from its dread solemnity. 
There was within him 

" That eye among the blind, 
That, deaf and silent, read the eternal deep, 
Haunted forever by the Eternal mind." 

And amidst all the uncertainties of his religious expe- 
rience, and all the vagueness of his views, perhaps there 
never was a man, who had a fuller, more constant, brooding 
sense of eternity, as a sense of eternal responsibility, and a 
danger of eternal ruin. And although custom lies upon 
our religious sensibilities, if they be not most anxiously 
cultivated, with a weight, as men advance into age, " heavy 
as frost, and deep almost as life," no religious deadness or 
insensibility or laxity of view ever delivered Foster from 
this powerful haunting sense of eternal retribution. We 
think we can detect it even in that late letter on the sub- 
ject of the Divine penalty, even while summoning all his 
powers to resist the conviction. A letter, not indeed writ- 
ten in anything like the dotage of the mind in old age, for 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 281 

Foster never lived to that, but bore his faculties with sur- 
prising vigor, beyond his three-score years and ten ; but 
still written when the wheel is beginning to cease its revo- 
lutions at the cistern, and when they that look out at the 
windows be darkened. A letter •full of the most surprising 
inconsistencies, of which the impression remaining on the 
mind is that of a being crushed beneath some heavy load, 
and writhing in vain to get out from it. 

The manner of Mr. Foster's reasoning in that letter, 
combined with the tenor of his practical appeals to the 
conscience in his writings, reminds us irresistibly of what 
he himself has said to the " professed disbelievers in the 
Christian revelation of an imaginary heaven, and an equally 
fictitious hell." " You must allow me to doubt, whether 
you really feel in this matter all the confident assurance 
which you pretend. I suspect there are times, when you 
dare not look out over that field, for fear of seing the por- 
tentous shapes there again ; and even that they sometimes 
come close to present a ghastly visage to you through the 
very windows of your stronghold. I have observed in men 
of your class, that they often appear to regard the arrayed 
evidences of revealed religion, not with the simple aversion 
which may be felt for error and deception, but with that 
kind of repugnance which betrays a recognition of adverse 
power? 7 

Just so the argument of Foster against the Scripture 
view of the eternity of future punishments, betrays not so 
much a persuasion, as the existence of agonizing doubt, 
and the recognition of adverse power. 

We question if this will not also strike the mind in 
reading his letter to Dr. Harris, in which he speaks of the 
transcendently direful nature of a contemplation of the human 
race, if he believed the doctrine of the eternity of future mis- 
ery ; and speaks also of the " short term of mortal existence, 
absurdly sometimes denominated a probation" Mr. Foster, 
in writing this, must have absolutely forgotten what he 



282 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

himself wrote in his introduction to Doddri^e's Rise and 
Progress, in regard to that very probation, and the short- 
ness of it, and under this very denomination of a jjroba- 
tionary state. He tells the careless man with the most 
overwhelming pressure of solemnity he can bring to bear 
upon his spirit, to " think of that existence during endless 
ages, an existence to commence in a condition determined 
for happiness or misery by the state of mind which shall 
have been formed in this introductory periodP "The 
whole term of life, diminutive as it is for a preparatory in- 
troduction to that stupendous sequel, is what our Creator 
has allotted to us, leaving to us no responsibility that it is not 
longer." And Mr. Foster draws from the actual shortness 
of the preparatory time at the uttermost, an argument, not 
against the goodness of God, but for the conscience of the 
guilty man, to convince him of the infinite madness of 
making it any shorter, of wasting any portion of it. He 
tells the man of the world of the rapidity of the course with 
which he is passing out of life, rejecting from him all care 
of life's one grand business, the preparation for an eternal 
state. He tells him that he is madly living as if this life 
had no connection with that future life, and as if that 
future life would have " no reference or relation to the pre- 
vious and probationary state." He adjures the idea of 
eternity to overwhelm that spirit, whose whole scheme 
of existence embraces but a diminutive portion of time. 
He calls for the scene of the last judgment to present itself 
in a glare to the being whose conscience is in such awful 
repose. Let the thought of the Almighty fulminate on the 
mind of that mortal ! 

Here assuredly is that state most distinctly recognized, 
and the solemnity of it with great power enforced, as a 
probationary state, which Mr. Foster, at a later period, 
declared to be absurdly denominated a probation. But it 
was " in his haste" that he said it. We pass to a sketch 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 283 

of the succeeding portion of his life before resuming this 
subject. 

In the year 1800 Mr. Foster removed to Downend, 
about five miles from Bristol, where he preached regularly 
at a small chapel erected by Dr. Caleb Evans. Here he 
resided about four years, and then, " in consequence chiefly 
of the high testimony borne to his character and abilities 
by Mr. Hall, he was invited to become the minister of a 
Congregation meeting in Shepard's Barton, Frome." He 
removed thither in February, 1804, and in 1805 his great 
work, indeed the work, on which, as a grave profound 
classic in English Literature, his fame rests, was published. 
He was now thirty-five years of age. At this time a swel- 
ling in the thyroid gland of the neck compelled him for a 
season to relinquish preaching, and he gave up his charge, 
and devoted himself with much assiduity to a literary en- 
gagement as contributor to the Eclectic Review. " So 
fully was he occupied in this department of literature, that 
upwards of thirteen years elapsed, before he again appeared 
before the public in his own name." 

In 1808 he was married to an admirable lady of con- 
genial mind and feeling, to whom he had been engaged for 
five years. From the period of his marriage he lived a 
number of years at Bourton, a village in Gloucestershire, 
with a good deal of work and much serene domestic happi- 
ness. Though not settled in the ministry, he was preach- 
ing nearly every Sabbath, once or twice, for about seven 
years. In 1817 he became once more a resident and stated 
preacher at Downend, though for a few months only. In 
1818 he delivered his Discourse on Missions. His sermon 
in behalf of the British and Foreign School Society, de- 
livered the same year, was afterwards enlarged into the 
powerful Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance, and 
published in 1820. In 1821 he removed from Downend to 
Stapleton, within three miles of Bristol, and in 1822, at 
the earnest solicitation of his friends in Bristol, commenced 



284 LIFE AND WRITINGS OP JOHN FOSTER. 

a series of fortnight lectures in Broad mead Chapel. His 
preparations for these lectures have been printed since his 
death, and contain some of the finest productions of his 
genius. He continued these lectures somewhat longer than 
two years, but on the settlement of Robert Hall at Bristol 
he relinquished the engagement as, in his own view, " alto- 
gether superfluous, and even bordering on impertinent." 
He observed that he should have very little more preaching, 
probably, ever, but should apply himself to the mode of 
intellectual operation, of which the results might extend 
much further, and last much longer. 

In the year 1825 he wrote one of his most important 
and powerful essays, the Introduction to Doddridge's Rise 
and Progress of Religion. On occasion of the death of Mr. 
Hall, " a preacher," said Foster, " whose like or equal will 
come no more," instead of preaching the funeral sermon, 
which he declined by medical interdict, he published, in 
1832, his Observations on Mr. Hall as a preacher, in con- 
nection with Dr. Gregory's Memoir of his life. 

In a letter to Mr. Fawcett, in 1830, he says, " Pray, do 
you often preach ? I have suffered an almost entire de- 
position from that office, by physical organic debility as the 
primary cause, and as an occasional one by choice, from 
having felt the great inconvenience and laboriousness of 
doing occasionally what I have been so long out of the 
practise of ; so that for a long time past I have declined 
wholly our city pulpits, and never go higher than an easy 
unstudied discourse, now and then, in one or two of the 
neighboring country villages, where there is a stated min- 
istry. Mr. Hall is in high physical vigor for the age of 66, 
while often suffering severely the inexplicable pain in his 
back) of which he has been the subject from his childhood. 
His imagination, and therefore the splendor of his elo- 
quence, has considerably abated, as compared with his 
earlier and his meridian pitch, but his intellect is in the high- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 285 

est vigor ; and the character of his preaching is that of 
the most emphatically evangelical piety." 

Of Foster's own last discourse in the series of fortnight 
lectures, he announces the subject thus : " I had a splendid 
subject — the three Methodists of Babylon, in the fiery fur- 
nace ; and perhaps I thought, and perhaps some of the 
auditors thought, that I did it tolerable justice." What 
would we not have given to have heard that sermon ! 

In 1832 Mr. Foster's estimable and beloved wife was 
taken from him, and thenceforward the ten years of favor, 
added to his three-score, were to be passed in great loneli- 
ness. His " old and most excellent friend Hughes" was 
also taken in 1833. " But for having looked to see the 
day of the month," says he, "in order to date this letter, 
the day would have passed off without my being aware 
that it is the day that completes my sixty-third year, what 
is denominated the grand climacteric. I deeply deplore 
not having lived to worthier purpose, both for myself 
and others ; and earnestly hope and pray, that whatever 
of life remains may be employed much more faithfully to 
the great end of existence. But with this self-condemning 
review, and with nothing but an uncertain, and possibly 
small remainder of life in prospect, how emphatically op- 
pressive would be the conscious situation, if there were not 
that great propitiation, that redeeming sacrifice, to rest 
upon for pardon and final safety." 

We have spoken of Foster's constitutional and habitual 
horror of the labor of writing. It could not have been 
imagined, till the publication of these volumes of letters, 
what an amazing amount of time and labor he spent in 
the work of revision, remoulding and condensing, and 
sometimes amplifying his sentences. The new edition of 
his Essays on Popular Ignorance was in effect re- written ; 
he made a new work of it ; and the revision occupied him 
several months. For weeks he says he was at it, " with- 
out intermission or leisure to read a newspaper, review or 



286 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

anything else," having never undergone the same quantity 
of hard labor within the same number of weeks together 
in his whole life. " My principle of proceeding was to 
treat no page, sentence or word with the smallest cere- 
mony ; but to hack, split, twist, prune, pull up by the 
roots, or practise any other severity on whatever I did not 
like. The consequence has been alterations to the amount, 
very likely, of several thousands." " It is a sweet luxury, 
this book-making ; for I dare say I could point out scores 
of sentences, each one of which has cost me several hours 
of the utmost exertion of my mind to pat it in the state in 
which it now stands, after putting it in several other forms, 
to each one of which I saw some precise objection, which 
I could at the time have very distinctly assigned. And in 
truth there are hundreds of them to which I could make 
objections as they now stand, but I did not know how to 
hammer them into a better form." We must confess we 
wish that instead of so much of this revising work, Mr. 
Foster had spent the same amount of labor on some addi- 
tional production. 

This kind of labor, so much of it, was not necessary for 
the perfection of his work, as is manifest from the consid- 
eration of his greatest production, the Essays, which do 
not seem to have been thus labored, and are in fact in a 
more perfect style. The Essay Introductory to Doddridge's 
work was written by Mr. Foster, according to his own ac- 
count, as a mere task, a piece of hard, unwilling, compul- 
sory labor, throughout ; a perfect fag. He had made the 
contract for it with the bookseller ; it was so long unful- 
filled, that the whole edition of Doddridge lay -upon the 
shelves of the warehouse for years, unbound, waiting for 
the promised Essay, much to the damage of the publish- 
ers. He had himself a very poor opinion of the work, to 
which he was actually driven by dint of expostulations and 
remonstrances, and he says " it was almost all labored un- 
der a miserable feeling of contraction and sterility." And 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 287 

yet it is one of the most powerful Essays in the language, 
and it sparkles with illustrations, which are the result of 
profound thought and a Miltonic imagination wrestling to- 
gether, while it is pervaded, more than any other of Fos- 
ter's writings, by the solemnity of the Retributions of 
Eternity. A man who could write thus on compulsion 
ought to have written more abundantly of his own free 
will. 

But perhaps the happiest example of Foster's fineness, 
originality, and affluence of suggestive thought in connec- 
tion with a powerful imagination, are to be found in what 
is called in the biography, his Journal. This is a series 
of striking reflections, observations, and analogies, extended 
over a number of years, and marked to the amount of some 
eight or nine hundred. They are not all given by his bio- 
grapher ; some hundreds seem to be omitted ; for what rea- 
son we cannot tell. Certainly, articles which had been 
prepared and left on record by Mr. Foster himself, with 
great care, must have been far more worthy of publication 
than so strange and inconsistent a letter as the one to a 
young minister, which the writer himself, could he have 
been questioned as to its publication, would probably have 
condemned to the flames. On what principle any part of 
the Journal is kept back, while the letter is published, we 
cannot imagine. The pages occupied with this Journal are 
among the most intensely interesting, vivid, and suggestive 
portions of the volume. The observations seem often to be 
the result of a whole day's experience, or study, or self- 
reflection, or inspection of others, or meditation on the pro- 
cesses of nature, in a, single sentence ; reminding us of a 
remark once made by Dr. Chalmers in answer to a ques- 
tion put to him by a foreigner, What is John Foster now 
about ? " Why, sir, he is thinking as intensely as ever he 
can, at the rate of about a sentence a week." The analo- 
gies and illustrations are like flashes of light, in their sud- 



288 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

denness, with the illumination remaining as the steady light 
of day. 

The massive hardihood and sternness of thought distin- 
guishing all Mr. Foster's writings is owing in great measure 
to the gloomy depth and accuracy with which he had 
gauged the boundlessness of human depravity. If there 
was one fact that had the mastery over his mind, and col- 
ored all its delineations, it was that of the desperate and 
black corruption of our nature. No man saw more clearly, 
or painted more strongly and impressively, the native pre- 
dominant evils of the heart and of society. Instinctively 
he stripped off all disguises, and at a touch what was fair 
to the outside appeared full of rottenness. There reigned 
in his soul an indignant contempt of all forms of pride and 
hypocrisy, and of all cajoling of the race into a complacent 
sense of goodness, conveyed sometimes in sentences of 
withering sarcasm, sometimes in instances, as points, from 
which the malignity and intensity of supreme evil seem to 
hiss off, as it were, into the atmosphere. He keeps up in 
delineations with the furrow of fiery ruin laid open by the 
Apostle to the Gentiles. He was the first to unveil to the 
English nation the frightfulness of an education in such de- 
pravity ; to bring out into notice the hideous features of a 
race of children, who " know no good that it is to have been 
endowed with a rational rather than a brute nature, except- 
ing that they thus have the privilege of tormenting brutes 
with impunity." 

The work on the Evils of Popular Ignorance is in many 
respects the greatest of Foster's works ; it shows to best 
advantage the comprehensiveness of his views, the prodig- 
ious strength of his mind, and the intense energy with 
which it worked, on a subject that possessed his soul with 
a sense of its importance. For its burning, impetuous, 
cataractical, yet grave and steadfast tide of description ; for 
the concentration and continuity of an impression gloomy 
as night ; for the overwhelming power with which it takes 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 289 

the convictions as by storm ; for the strength and almost 
ferocious energy of its blows, blow after blow, as if you 
saw a giant sweating at his anvil, as if it were Vulcan 
forging the armor of Achilles, it has no instance to be 
brought in comparison. For the manner in which the 
strength of the English language is tasked in its combina- 
tions to express the conceptions of the writer, there is no* 
thing but some pages in the Paradise Lost to be placed be- 
fore it. There are passages in it, which make the same 
impression on the mind as Milton's description of hell, or 
of the Messiah driving the rebellious angels out of heaven. 
In all English literature it were vain to look for passages 
of greater power, than the author's delineations of the abom- 
inations of Popery, and of Pagan depravity and misery. 
And there are other passages of equal sublimity and power 
of imagination in more captivating exercise. 

The paragraph on the effect of a conscience darkened 
in ignorance, or almost gone out as the inward light and 
law of the being, is one of the most striking instances of 
the grand part which Foster's imagination was made to 
play in the exhibition of his subjects. 

" As the man moves hither and thither on the scene, he 
has his perception of what is existing and passing on it ; there 
are continually meeting his senses numberless moving and 
stationary objects ; and among the latter there are many 
forms of limitation and interdiction ; there are high walls 
and gates and fences, and brinks of torrents and precipices ; 
in short, an order of things on all sides signifying to him, 
with more or less of menace, — Thus far and no farther. And 
he is in a general .way obsequious to this arrangement. 
We do not ordinarily expect to see him carelessly violating 
the most decided of the artificial lines of warning-off, nor 
darting across those dreadful ones of nature. But the 
while y as he is nearly destitute of that faculty of the soul 
which would perceive {analogously to the effect of coming 
in contact with something charged with that element 

13 



290 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

which causes the lightning), the awful interceptive lines 
of that other arrangement, which he is in the midst of as 
a subject of the laws of God, we see with what insensi- 
bility he can transgress those prohibitory significations of 
the Almighty will, which are to devout men as lines 
streaming with an infinitely more formidable than mate- 
rial fire. And if we look towards his future course of 
life, the natural sequel foreseen is, that those lines of divine 
interdiction, which he has not conscience to perceive as 
meant to deter him, he will seem nevertheless to have 
through his corruptions, a strong recognition of, but in 
another quality, — as temptations to attract him." 

From about the period of his sixtieth year, Mr. Foster 
prepared little or nothing for the press. His last article in 
the Eclectic Review was published in 1839. From the 
year 1806 to that period be had written one hundred and 
eighty-five articles : sixty-one of these were collected and 
published in two volumes by Dr. Price, the Editor of the 
Eclectic, only twenty of which have been republished 
in this country. From the year 1830 we see the mind of 
this great writer mainly in his letters. They are filled with 
profound, solemn, interesting feeling and thought. He took 
great interest in political affairs, though necessarily a 
gloomy view. He had a most profound sense of the despe- 
rate depravity and selfishness of political intrigues, and an 
intense hatred of the domineering perniciousness of the 
Establishment. 

In what manner the shades of solemnity were folding 
and deepening over his soul in the prospect of the eternal 
world, and what was the ground of his hope for pardon 
and blessedness, in " the grand Futurity," a few short ex- 
tracts from his letters will strikingly show. They reveal a 
solemn anxiety inconsistent with that dismissal of the doc- 
trine of eternal punishment, of which we are to speak. 
" Whatever may be our appointed remaining time on 
earth," says he, in a letter in 1836, " we are sure it is 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 291 

little enough for a due preparation to go safely and happily 
forward into that eternal hereafter." In 1837, speaking of 
the death of a friend, " I have regretted to understand that 
she was a confirmed Socinian — greatly regretted it ; for it 
does appear to me a tremendous hazard to go into the other 
world in that character. The exclusion from Christianity 
of that which a Socinian rejects, would reduce me instantly 
to black despair" "It is fearful to think what the final 
account must be at the award of infallible Justice, for the 
immense multitude of accountable creatures." 

In a letter of retrospection, to a dear friend, in 1840, he 
says, "The pain of a more austere kind than that of pen- 
siveness is from the reflection to how little purpose, of the 
highest order, the long years here, and subsequently else- 
where, have been consumed away — how little sedulous and 
earnest cultivation of internal piety — how little even mental 
improvement — how little of zealous devotement to God 
and Christ, and the best cause. Oh, it is a grievous and 
sad reflection, and drives me to the great and only resource, 
to say, God be merciful to me a sinner ! I also most ear- 
nestly implore that in one way or another what may remain 
of my life may be better, far better, than the long pro- 
tracted past. PAST ! What a solemn and almost tremen- 
dous word it is, when pronounced in the reference in which 
I am repeating it !" 

In 1841, confined with illness, he says, " The review of 
life has been solemnly condemnatory — such a sad deficiency 
of the vitality of religion, the devotional spirit, the love, 
the zeal, the fidelity of conscience. I have been really 
amazed to think how I could — I do not say have been, con- 
tent with such a low and almost equivocal piety, for I never 
have been at all content — but, how I could have endured 
it without my whole soul rising up against it, and calling 
vehemently on the Almighty Helper to come to my rescue, 
and never ceasing till the blessed experience was attained. 
And then the sad burden of accumulated guilt ! and the 



292 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

solemn future ! and life so near the end ! O, what dark 
despair but for that blessed light, that shines from the 
Prince of Life, the only and the all-sufficient Deliverer 
from the second death. I have prayed earnestly for a gen- 
uine penitential, living faith on him." " There is much 
work yet to be done in this most unworthy soul ; my sole 
reliance is on Divine assistance, and I do hope and earn- 
estly trust (trust in that assistance itself), that every day 
I may yet have to stay on earth will be employed as part of 
a period of persevering and I may almost say passionate 
petitions for the Divine mercy of Christ, and so continue 
to the last day and hour of life, if consciousness be then 
granted." 

Again, in 1842, " Within and without are the admoni- 
tions that life is hastening to its close. I endeavor to feel 
and live in conformity to this admonition ; greatly dissatis- 
fied with myself and my past life, and having and seeking 
no ground of hope for hereafter, but solely the all-sufficient 
merits and atonement of our Lord and Saviour. If that 
great cause of faith and hope were taken away, I should 
have nothing left." 

In October, 1843, the very month of his death, he says 
to a friend, " I have now not the smallest expectation of 
surviving a very few months. The great and pressing busi- 
ness is therefore to prepare for the event. That is, in truth, 
our great business always ; but is peculiarly enforced in a 
situation like mine. It involves a review of past life ; and 
oh, how much there is to render reflection painful and 
alarming. Such a review would consign me to utter de- 
spair, but for my firm belief in the all-sufficiency of the 
mediation of our Lord." In his last letter to Mr. Hill, he 
says, " What would become of a poor sinful soul, but for 
that blessed, all-comprehensive sacrifice, and that interces- 
sion at the right hand of the Majesty on High ?" 

Of the same affecting and solemn character was the tenor 
of his last conversations. He frequently spoke of the value, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 293 

of prayer, and often turned the conversation on the sub- 
ject of the separate state. " After the death of any friend, 
he seemed impatient to be make acquainted with the secrets 
of the invisible world. On one occasion of this kind, rather 
more than a twelvemonth before his own decease, he ex- 
claimed, They don't come back to tell us ! and then, after 
a short silence, emphatically striking his hand upon the 
table, he added, with a look of intense seriousness, But we 
shall know some tiirieP 

" Speaking of his weakness, to one of his two servants, 
who had lived with him for about thirty years, he mentioned 
some things, which he had not strength to perform ; and 
then added, But I can pray, and that is a glorious thing. 
On another occasion he said to his attendant, Trust in 
Christ, trust in Christ ? On another time the servant heard 
him repeating to himself the words, O death, where is thy 
sting? O grave where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, 
who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
Thus in the night, entirely alone, but Christ with him, 
October 16th, 1843, all that was mortal of a being most 
" fearfully and wonderfully made," slept peacefully, and 
expired. 

We must now recur to that grand subject of interest in 
these volumes, on which we have already dwelt in part. 
We have referred to Mr. Foster's letter to a young minister 
on the eternity of future punishments, in which he attempted 
what he called a moral argument against it. This letter 
was written so late as the year 1841. But in the mean- 
time, what shall we say of the moral argument in support 
of it, all the while working itself out in Mr. Foster's per- 
sonal convictions as to the sole ground of safety in eternity, 
and enforced so powerfully, with such impressive, such 
awful solemnity in some of his writings ? What a strange 
and unaccountable inconsistency for such a man in his let- 
ters, in his spontaneous convictions, in his practical writings, 
to be speaking of the second death, of the inevitableness of 



294 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

despair without reliance upon Christ, of the perdition in 
eternity, except there be that reliance, and at the same time 
instituting an argument, according to which there is really 
no second death, there can be no such thing as despair, and 
no possibility of perdition ! According to which, if a man 
had asked Mr. Foster, " Sir, what is that second death, of 
which you speak?" he must have answered, "I know 
nothing about it, except that it is not eternal, but is a mere 
introduction into everlasting life !" What has a man to do 
with despair, who believes that the whole human race will 
be everlastingly blessed, and who, if he reasons closely, will 
have to acknowledge that any prior discipline of human 
misery would but enhance the rapture of the blessedness, 
and might actually be a thing, in the long run, to be 
chosen ? 

The inconsistency of which we speak, appears more mar- 
vellous still, on comparing the letter to a young minister 
with Mr. Foster's Introductory Essays to Doddridge's Rise 
and Progress of Religion in the Soul. It would scarcely 
have been imagined that two productions, so dissimilar, so 
contrary, could have proceeded from the same writer. The 
whole solemnity and power of the Essay is owing to the 
doctrine of an endless retribution ; take that away, and it 
is as a gaseous jelly, which sparkled with phosphorescence 
in the night, but becomes a cold putrid pulp in the day. 
Take away the belief of the reader in the writer's deep per- 
sonal convictions of the truth of what he is uttering, and 
you disenchant his pages of their power. It is the belief 
that the consequences impending are eternal, that creates 
that power. The very blade of Mr. Foster's keen weapon 
was forged in the fires of that endless perdition, which, in 
the letters to a young minister, he denies ; its handle 
sparkles with gems that flash forth the warnings of insuf- 
ferable ruin. He bids the soul tremble at the thought of 
dying unprepared ; he makes it acknowledge that the 
" entirely depending interest of its futurity is vast and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 295 

eternal." He bids it think of that existence during endless 
ages, — an existence to commence in a condition determined 
for happiness or misery by the state of mind which shall 
have been formed in this introductory period. He bids it 
regard the melancholy phenomenon of a little dependent 
spirit, voluntarily receding from its beneficent Creator, 
directing its progress away from the eternal source of light, 
and life, and joy, and that on a vain presumption of being 
under the comet's law, of returning at last to the sun ! 

He bids the man of the world remember that nothing 
will be gained, and all be lost, by refusing to think of it. 
He tells him that a preparation to meet God is that one 
thing, of which the failure is perdition. He tells him that 
no tempest nor shock of an earthquake would affright him 
so much as this horrible neglect of his eternal salvation, if 
it could be suddenly revealed to him in full light. He 
speaks of the supreme interest of his existence, and of the 
whole question of safety or utter ruin, as depending. He 
speaks of the necessity now of " applying to the soul the 
redeeming principle, without which it w T ill perish. 5 ' He 
speaks of the madness of delay. "The possibility of dying 
unprepared takes all the value from even the highest proba- 
bility that there will be prolonged time to prepare ; plainly, 
because there is no proportion between the fearfulness of 
such a hazard, and the precariousness of such a depend- 
ence." He tells man that his corrupt nature, if untrans- 
formed in this world, must be miserable in the next. He 
tells him that the subject is one which he cannot let go, 
" without abandoning himself to the dominion of death." 
And he arrays the melancholy spectacle of a " crowd of 
human beings in prodigious, ceaseless stir to keep the dust 
of the earth in motion, and then to sink into it, while all 
beyond is darkness and desolation !" 

Now what is the meaning of all this ? To suppose that 
these solemn adjurations were used merely to keep up an ap- 
pearance of belonging to the orthodox faith on this subject, 



296 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

would be revolting in the extreme ; it would make the reader 
throw the book from him in contempt and disgust ; but to 
suppose that the author used such language because, though 
he himself did not believe the truth which it would be held 
to convey, he nevertheless thought it would make the book 
more impressive — would be very little better. And what 
would have been the effect, if the author had prefaced the 
work with something like the following announcement : — 
The writer of these pages does not believe in the doctrine 
assumed in the work to which they are introductory, 
namely, that the retributions of eternity are eternal, and 
holds very different ideas as to the mercy of the Universal 
Father, from those ordinarily held by the divines of Dr. 
Doddridge's mode of thinking. Nevertheless, something 
was necessary to give the work a credit and currency with 
those who hold his opinions ; and besides, it must be con- 
fessed, that nothing but the idea of eternal consequences 
is of any weight either to bring men to religion or to keep 
them from vice. 

The effect of such a declaration, should the reader of 
the work keep it in view, would be almost ludicrous, if the 
subject itself were not to solemn for such an emotion ; it 
would be powerfully neutralizing as to any deep impression ; 
nor could any statement as to the author's belief in limited 
punishment retain under any efficacious impulse of amend- 
ment, the careless hearts to which the work was directed. 
It would be like attempting to hold a ship, that is dragging 
her anchor in a storm, by a kedge attached to her bul- 
warks. 

What shall we say of the conflicting states of mind re- 
vealed in Mr. Foster's intensely interesting epistolary biog- 
raphy, and intensely powerful practical writings on this 
great subject ? From the age of seventy we must revert 
back to the seed-time of his opinions, and we shall find the 
noxious root of a plant exhaling poison that grew into ob- 
stinate toughness, in spite of the accompanying growth of 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 297 

all gracious herbs. We have seen that Mr. Foster's mind, 
richly endowed as it was, seemed to make a disastrous 
pause in the comparative twilight of Divine truth. He 
seems to have felt it' him self. And the clue to a solution 
in part may be found in the 21st letter in the biographical 
collection, in which Foster says he has just been reading 
an author, " who maintains with very great force of reason- 
ing, that no man could, in any situation, have acted differ- 
ently from what he has done." u Though I do not see how 
to refute his argument," says Foster, "I feel as if I ought 
to differ from his opinion. He refers to Jonathan Edwards 
as a powerful advocate of the same doctrine. He says 
such an expression as, I will exert myself, is absurd. It is 
an expression which, notwithstanding, I am inclined to 
repeat, as I view the wide field of duty before me." 

That this book had a lasting effect upon Foster's state 
of mind and trains of opinion, is manifest from a letter 
written about a year after this date, in which he runs the 
circle of the reasoning of a perfet Necessitarian, and con- 
soles himself, amidst his despairing views of the wretched 
state of man, with the maxim, Whatever is, is right. "If 
sin be traced up to its cause," says he, " that cause will be 
found to have been — the nature and state of man; but this 
cause was precisely so fixed by the Creator, and evidently 
with a determination that this fatal consequence should 
follow ; or he fixed it so, that he saw this consequence 
most certainly would follow. He who fixed the first great 
moving causes, appointed all their effects to the end of the 
world. Whatever is, is right. Thus, regaining God as 
strictly the cause of all things, I am led to consider all 
things as working his high will ; and to believe that there 
is neither more nor less evil in the world than he saw accu- 
rately necessary toward that ultimate happiness, to which 
he is training, in various manners, all his creatures. In this 
view, too, I can sometimes commit myself to his hands, 

13* 



298 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER.^ 

with great complacency, certain that he will do for me, in 
all respects, that which is the best." 

Now this reasoning was precisely that which might well 
have led to utter and disastrous Universalism. But Foster 
was saved from that, though he here seems ready to throw 
himself, and his whole system of theology, into the central 
involutions of the chain of necessity from eternity. The 
theory that sin is the necessary means of the greatest good, 
involved, in a mind like Foster's, such a palpable accusa- 
tion of the Divine benevolence, that while writhing in the 
folds of that moral anaconda, there was no resource to his 
soul, shrinking from the fatal consequence, but to throw 
himself on the conclusion, that since men were of necessity 
sinners for the greatest good, they would be also of neces- 
sity saved, for the greatest happiness ; God, the author of 
this system, would conduct it safely to its end, and there- 
fore the anxious, self-accusing, self-condemned mortal, 
might, at times, under the comfort of being a certain link 
in the chain of Necessity, commit himself with great com- 
placency into God's hands. The whole chain passes indeed 
through the medium of sin, but it is only to come out 
brighter in the atmosphere of eternal glory. 

If this was, at any time, any prominent source of Foster's 
complacency of mind, it may be asked, could he at the 
same time have been intelligently resting his hopes for 
eternity upon God's free sovereign mercy to the sinner for 
the sake of Christ ? We believe that at times there was 
a great occultation in Foster's mind, and a sad veiling from 
it of the true nature and glory of the atonement ; and that 
under the influence of such trains of reasoning and such 
grappling with difficulties insurmountable by the human 
reason, he did not accept fully, heartily, the Bible view of 
man as a sinner wholly and solely to blame, and saw not 
clearly, fully, in joyful experience, the Bible view of salva- 
tion to the penitent, as wholly, solely of grace. He passed 
into a better state of mind, but his abiding horror of eternal 






LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 299 

misery, unaccompanied by an anchor of the soul, in the 
depths of God's word on that subject, tossed him perpet- 
ually on a sea of doubt. In the same degree it palsied his 
plans and efforts after usefulness, and diffused over his soul, 
in reference to the missionary enterprise, a chilling atmos- 
phere, in which the zeal of an Apostle himself would have 
frozen. Combined with the latent influences of his preju- 
dices in favor of the scheme of necessity, it sometimes 
brought him to the verge of a startling irreverence in his 
conclusions. He dismisses the whole subject of the mis- 
sionary enterprise, on one occasion, with the summary 
sentence, that if the sovereign Arbiter had intended the 
salvation of the race, it must have been accomplished ! 
The intimation in his train of argument is, that he did not 
intend it, but so far as he did, it will certainly be accom- 
plished, and therefore there is no great need of impotent 
creatures like ourselves, amidst such a sea of troubles of 
our own, taking much care about it. 

Just so, in the same letter to Dr. Harris, Foster dis- 
missed the common representations of the Deity as being 
deeply moved with compassion for the heathen, and ear- 
nestly intent on human salvation, with the exclamation, or 
perhaps we should say the daring sneer, u And this is the 
Almighty Being, whose single volition could transform the 
whole race in a moment !" The tone of this letter, what- 
ever excellencies there be in it, is like that of Cain, " Am 
I my brother's keeper ?" And Cain himself might as well 
have answered the Deity, " Thou mightest by a single 
volition have removed my brother Abel from my sight and 
taken away my temptation. Thou didst never intend 
that I should not kill him." Or Adam himself might have 
answered for his sin, " Thou mightest have veiled the for- 
bidden tree from my vision. Thou didst never intend that 
I should not eat of the fruit of it." We acquit Foster of 
all impiety in such reasoning, though the tone of it savors 
in one part more of the spirit of Cain, and in another of 



300 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

that of Jonah, " I do well to be angry," than of the spirit 
of Paul or of John. Nor can any one fail to remark the 
different manner of reasoning in regard to the depravity of 
the heathen, employed by Foster, and that employed in the 
first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. The inspired 
writer condemns man wholly as without excuse, and justi- 
fies the ways of God to man ; the uninspired writer excuses 
the depravity of man as a thing forced upon him, an ele- 
ment of dire necessity, and condemns God as annexing an 
eternal retributive penalty for such depravity ! 

We acquit Foster of all impiety of spirit, but he cer- 
tainly indulged almost to the last degree of permissible 
freedom, and to the verge of presumption and irreverence, 
in his speculations on this subject. His own mind was so 
tortured with it, with the scene of human existence, as " a 
most mysteriously awful economy, overspread by a lurid 
and dreadful shade," that he had to " pray for the piety to 
maintain an humble submission of thought and feeling to 
the wise and righteous disposer of all existence." But he 
carried out the prejudices of his own mind with a degree 
of independence amounting to obstinacy, and not at all 
characterized by that profound submissiveness to the Divine 
Wisdom, which on this, as on every other subject, we 
should have supposed so superior an intelligence as Foster's 
would have exercised. And late in life we can see coming 
out in his opinions the ineffaceable mark which that book 
on the system of necessity had left upon his mind. 

Besides this work, Foster speaks of an old and nearly 
unknown book, which he must have seen at an early period, 
in favor of universal restitution. A book which made an 
impression on a mind like Foster's, was likely to make it 
deep ; and if he met these two books together, the currents 
of thought would run into one another with great power. 
The scheme of necessity at one end comes fitly out in res- 
titution at the other. If Foster had been at this time deep 
in the Scriptures, neither of these works could have much 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 301 

affected him ; and there may have been some radical dis- 
tortion in his view of some doctrines, which he accepted 
without hesitation, that made him shrink back from others 
in the plain truth. Truth in the Scriptures leads on to 
truth ; but if a man's view of the first step be distorted, 
he may easily be turned aside from the second. If Mr. 
Foster believed that every individual soul was created evil 
by the Supreme Deity, there is little cause to wonder at 
the dreadful struggle in his mind in regard to what he con- 
ceived to be eternal punishment for the inevitable result of 
such creation. If he did not believe the depravity of man 
to be voluntary, but threw that depravity upon God as his 
creation, then, indeed, he could not receive the doctrine 
of an endless retribution, and still hold to the goodness of 
God. And we are inclined to think that this was in some 
measure the awful dilemma of his mind ; for he dismisses 
the whole subject in his letter with the reckless argument 
that if the very nature of man as created, every individual ', 
by the Sovereign Power, be in such desperate disorder, then 
we cannot conceive that the race thus impotent will be 
eternally punished for that impotence. 

Now, it is a most remarkable fact that Mr. Foster him- 
self, in his Introduction to Doddridge's Rise and Progress, 
has taken up and rebuked just this angry argument, as 
supposed to be used by a desperately careless man, as an 
excuse or almost a justification for his stupid and defying 
indifference to consequences, from the moral impotence of 
our nature. But he does not there use the astounding ar- 
gument, with which, as a desperate slug, he has loaded his 
letter. He replies in a very different way. "The reason- 
ing faculty of such a man is a wretched slave, that will 
not, and dare not, listen to one word in presence and in 
contravention of his passions and will. The only thing 
there would be any sense in attempting would be, to press 
on him some strong images of the horror of such a delib- 
erate self-consignment to destruction, and of the monstrous 



302 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

enormity of taking a kind of comfort in his approach to the 
pit, from the circumstance that a principle in his nature 
leads him to it; just as if, because there is that in him 
which impels him to perdition, it would therefore not be 
he that will perish. Till some awful blast smite on his 
fears, his reason and conscience will be unavailing," 

Is it not remarkable to the last degree, that Mr. Foster 
should have rebuked as " monstrous," a mode of reasoning 
in behalf of the individual, which he himself uses in behalf 
of the race ? Because there is that in the race, which impels 
it to perdition, Mr. Foster argues that therefore the race 
will not perish. But when the same " moral impotence of 
our nature" is urged by the hardened man, as if, on account 
of it, it will not be he that will perish, the reasoning faculty 
of such a man is justly asserted to be a wretched slave. 
That, however, which ought to have been rebuked as itself 
a " monstrous enormity" and a hideous distortion of the- 
ology, is the supposition that a created moral impotence 
can be the subject of punishment at all ; or rather, in the 
first place, the outrageous supposition that there is such a 
thing as a created moral impotence, and in the second place, 
if there is, that such a creation can be punished. It might 
be called an argument black with the smoke of the pit, for 
it must be malignant spirits that delight so to obscure the 
ways of God to man. But the smoke which issues in such 
a jet from the close of Mr. Foster's letter is not so much, as 
by him assumed, against the doctrine of eternal punishment, 
as against any punishment at all. 

But where did Mr. Foster learn this truly despairing 
theology, which prepared him so fatally to listen to the ar- 
guments of Necessity and Universal Restitution ? He 
could not so have read the Scriptures. It must have been 
the malignant intrusion of a darkening philosophy, which 
was set, as an heir-loom of his education, in the recesses 
of his mind, and wove a tissue of palsying lurid doubt 
through one whole region of his speculations. It was this, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 303 

and not the eternity of punishment, that was to him as a 
shirt of fire thrown over the body of his theology. 

Where did these principles come from, and whence their 
singular outbreak at so late a period in life, as if some de- 
moniac art had " buried the seed and kept it artificially 
torpid, that it might be quickened into germination" at a 
time when there would be less questioning of its nature, 
less suspicion of its truth ! If it came as an element of 
Foster's instruction in his early days, it reminds us of his 
own warning " that whatever entwines itself with the youth- 
ful feelings, maintains a strange tenacity, and seems to in- 
sinuate into the vitality of the being. How important to 
watch lest what is thus combining with its life, should con- 
tain a principle of moral death !" And it may be consid- 
ered the master policy of the Spirit of Evil to put principles 
into the mind beforehand, under the guise of truth, which 
it is foreseen will act as powerfully against the truth, as 
if there were " a shield invisibly held by a demon's hand," 
or if not act against it, will veil and darken it, will fetter 
and perplex it, and make it enclose the soul like a net, in- 
stead of surrounding it like a luminous atmosphere. 

It was just thus that even a mind of such power, and a 
soul of such undoubted piety, as Mr. Foster's became en- 
tangled in the truth, instead of walking at liberty and 
illuminated by it. Accursed by the intrusion of the mud 
and poison of such philosophy into the clear running stream 
of the Word of God ! Could it be seen as mud, it would 
be rejected as mud ; but men drink of it as the water of 
life. How dark a stuff is mere human speculation ! What 
a series of caves are the recesses of the mind consigned to 
it ; recesses of such depth, that if you take a light to ex- 
amine them, you find the air itself is mephitic, and you are 
in danger of having your eyes put out by the bats that fly 
from them. 

But Mr. Foster's argument, concerning " the moral im- 
potence of the race," does not altogether wear the air of a 



304 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

sincere conviction even in his own mind. It seems to have 
been a sort of angry exaggeration and distortion of the 
scriptural view of human depravity, which he threw out in 
the impatience of a tempted spirit, to justify his efforts 
against the awful reality pressing on his soul. He shields 
himself behind an angry and irreverent if; for he did not 
dare to pat the supposition in the shape of an assertion. 
Grant the if indeed, and the conclusion follows. If God 
himself created "a desperate disorder," it follows that he 
created the inevitable results of that disorder ; and if so, 
then both the disorder and its results are good ; for an ab- 
solutely and infinitely good being can create nothing evil. 
Nor is it conceivable that punishment of any kind should 
be annexed to a disorder, of which God himself is the au- 
thor, unless, indeed, the punishment also be considered 
as a good, leading to a higher good, which it is not, if it be 
eternal. It cannot be considered a good for the wicked, 
however it may subserve the interests of the universe of 
God. 

But Foster's mind is occupied with the fate of the wicked 
exclusively, and their salvation at all hazards is resolved 
upon. The care of the good, the effect of sin upon them, 
released from an eternal retribution, the necessity of some 
penal safeguard for the universe, the inevitable failure of 
the Atonement, without such a safeguard, the demand 
through all eternity for an adequate manifestation of the 
Divine justice, all these great considerations are put out of 
view ; they are not permitted to occupy the attention ; or 
if spoken of, they are presented as " lightly assumed and 
presumptuous maxims respecting penal example in the 
order of the divine government," while the doubt as to the 
Divine goodness from " the awfulness of the economy" 
of eternal retribution is morbidly enlarged and dragged into 
notice. 

Mr. Foster seems to have written some of these letters 
in a terrific mood. It is as if we saw a Christian Diogenes 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 305 

in his tub. It is as if Job were before us on his dunghill 
giving vent to the bitterness of a wounded spirit. And there 
are some vast sneers at the mode of preaching in the ex- 
hibition of the divine compassion, which are as if Satan had 
stood by the road-side when our Saviour wept over Jerusa- 
lem, and had exclaimed, And this is the Being who could 
by a single volition make the soul of every person in Jeru- 
salem receive him with delight ! 

Aye ! and it ivas Satan by the road-side in Foster's own 
mind. And instead of a bold unhesitating appeal in an- 
swer from the Word of God, we hear again the hiss of the 
serpent ! " Perhaps there is some pertinence in a sugges- 
tion which I recollect to have seen in some old and nearly 
unknown book in favor of universal restitution." The hiss 
of the serpent, old indeed and pertinent ! Has God said, 
ye shall not eat ? Yet God doth know ye shall not surely 
die. Apollyon in this conflict has taken from Foster's hand 
the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and in 
its place has slipped into his grasp a figurative symbol or 
accommodation of that Word, and the power of the Word 
is all gone. And instead of the voice, Ynays bnlow /uov, 
Saxava, Get thee behind me Satan, or the mighty word, 
ytyQtxmixi, it is written, we hear the tongue of unbelief — 
strongly figurative expressions ! A man like Bunyan 
would have recorded this style of experience as a beset- 
ment by the fiends in the Valley of Tophet, and with the 
greatest truth and accuracy ; and what seems amazing is 
the morbid craving after doubt, the voracity with which 
suggestions of difficulty and darkness are seized and rumi- 
nated upon, to the exclusion of what is clear and incontro- 
vertible, so that at length light seems to retire, and the 
clouds roll thick and heavy over the firmament. 

Amidst these doubts and difficulties, wrestling with them 
and grimly pressing on, beneath the " lurid and dreadful 
shade of a mysteriously awful economy," we behold this 
great mind out at sea, amidst darkness, hurricane, the wind 



306 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

howling, the waves roaring. Sometimes the image is as 
that of a powerful steamer, thrown on her side by a moun- 
tain billow, her fires still burning, her engine crashing on, 
her wheels on one side buried and ploughing the deep, on 
the other as iron wings thundering in the air amidst the 
tempest. For with Foster's mind it ivas a tempest ; and 
if he speaks of it, but briefly and calmly, it was because 
all his emotions, as stirred by mental conflicts, were com- 
pressed with a severity of condensation that allowed of no 
noisy or superficial escape. The great doubt with him 
supplied the place of ten thousand minor ones ; for it was 
a doubt even as to the benevolence of the Divine economy ; 
a temptation which in such a mind wrought with a force 
terrible and inevitable. The wind that raised the waves, 
compressed them and kept them from breaking, or the ocean 
had been sheeted with foam. He had piety to pray for 
submission, and God's arm held him, and amidst all con- 
flicts he never failed to exercise a prayerful, watchful faith 
in God's merciful superintending providence over his own 
life and destiny. 

There is a striking resemblance between his experience, 
and that of the author of the 73rd Psalm, though absolutely 
the reverse in almost every point, and a resemblance of 
powerful contrast. The scepticism in the Psalmist's mind 
was in regard to the allowed prosperity of the wicked, and 
the seeming want and denial in the divine economy, of any 
adequate retribution. It took such a deep hold of the soul, 
and spread such a " lurid and mysterious shade" over God's 
dispensations that the mind was almost driven from its 
balance ; the feet of the saint had well nigh gone, his steps 
had almost slipped, and he was on the point of renouncing 
his faith in the goodness of the Deity. He was losing his 
hold on the goodness of God, because it seemed to him 
that God had no retributive justice. He was brought 
back, his feet were placed upon the rock, he was brought 
as a madman or a beast to his senses, by coming into God's 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 307 

sanctuary, and there knowing what God ivoidd do in the 
eternal world. Was there ever a more instructive lesson ? 
Was there ever a more instructive and solemn contrast 
and resemblance between this man's doubts and the cure of 
them, and Foster's doubts, with his failure of a cure, until 
he went not merely into the sanctuary of God, but into 
eternity itself! Foster's scepticism was as to the goodness 
of God, because of his justice, because of the undeniable 
looming up in the Christian system of the doctrine of 
Eternal Retribution ! There was no resource in the 
sanctuary for that ; there was no help in God's Word for 
that ; nor any cure, even if one should rise from the dead, 
for the scepticism of a man who would not believe on the 
power of God's Word in that. If a man persisted in that 
doubt, there was no care for such scepticism, but to go into 
eternity, to enter what Foster called the absolute unknown, 
but which, in the light of God's Word, is as absolute a 
known as, to the eye of faith, God could make it. 

Pressed, then, by this doubt on the one side, and the 
awful language of the Word of God on the other, and yet 
exclaiming, It is too horrible ! I cannot believe ! Eternity ! 
my soul shudders at the thought ! God cannot be good, 
and yet appoint an eternal retribution ! — exclaiming thus, 
and still holding to the scepticism arising from his limited 
view of the Divine government and attributes, and his intense 
fixedness of contemplation on one point, eternity, we do 
not wonder that such a mind even as Foster's had well 
nigh slipped, nor that he, like the Psalmist, was as a beast 
before God. But let the contrast be profoundly marked. 
The Psalmist doubted of God's goodness for toant of retri- 
bution, John Foster doubted of God's goodness because 
of retribution. The Psalmist was convinced and made 
submissive and trustful by what he was assured would be 
in eternity ; but Foster was racked with distrust and 
doubt by what he feared ivould be in eternity. The 
Psalmist was convinced by God's Word, and rested on it; 



308 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

but Foster's mind was thrown into anguish by the plain 
interpretation of that Word, and sought to evade it. Foster 
would not bow unhesitatingly before the Majesty of God's 
Word ; he wanted a firm unquestioning trust in it ; he 
wanted faith. His grand defect was a gloomy self-reliance 
on his own reasoning powers, in lieu of an humble inquiry, 
What saith the Lord ? He stood like Thomas in the presence 
of his Lord, demanding the wounds in his side and the 
prints of the nails. 

Nor can anything be more unphilosophical and erroneous 
in principle, or dangerous in example, than Mr. Foster's 
mode of reasoning on this subject. He demanded, on a 
subject of faith alone, an evidence destructive of the nature 
of faith. He demanded that God should force conviction 
on every mind. He demanded that the doctrine of eternal 
retribution should be so presented, " as to leave no possi- 
bility of understanding the language in a different, equivo- 
cal, or questionable sense ;" that it should be so presented, 
as to render " all doubt or question a mere palpable ab- 
surdity." Now, it is plain that this, in regard to anything 
that demands belief, and is not matter of experience, per- 
sonal experience, is impossible. The very fact that God is 
cannot be so stated, as to leave no possibility of under- 
standing it in a questionable sense. The doctrine of eter- 
nal retribution, as demanding belief, cannot be so stated as 
to preclude belief, and form experience. This world must 
be changed from a world of preparation for the eternal 
world into an experience of the realities of that world, 
before this can be the case ; in other words, God's present 
system of probation under the power of the atonement, by 
which the penalty of his law is kept from execution, and 
men are warned of it, and commanded and urged to pre- 
pare against it, and to prepare for blessedness instead of 
misery in the future world, must be broken up ; and instead 
of warnings of what is to come, and descriptions demand- 
ing belief, and the revelations of principles requiring faith, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 309 

the fires of the eternal world must be kindled in this ; and 
instead of a picture so graphic, and a description so awful, 
of the sinner in the place of torment, that anything beyond 
it would transcend the province of faith, and set aside all 
the laws of the human mind in regard to evidence, there 
must not only be exhibited here a sinner in torment, but 
every individual accountable agent must be put into the 
same torment, and then told this is what punishment means, 
and this is to be eternal ! But even then, this latter truth 
as to the eternity of retribution could not, without the 
experience also of that, be so framed as to preclude all pos- 
sibility of question. For when the declaration had been 
made, and in the most explicit terms that human language 
can command, the mind of the sceptic might say, This can- 
not be ! there must be some other way of understanding 
this ! It is absolutely inconsistent with God's goodness, and 
must have a different interpretation. And if God should 
speak the truth audibly to every individual, every day of 
his existence, instead of leaving it simply written in his 
Word, the case would be the same. And if he should 
write it in characters of fire in the firmament, or make 
such a disposition of the planets in heaven, as that they 
should read it nightly to the soul, the case would be the 
same. There would be no possibility of forcing conviction 
without experience, no possibility of doing this, and still 
leaving to the soul the alternative of believing or dis- 
believing. 

A conviction absolutely irresistible, can only be that of 
experience. But this would destroy the element of free- 
agency, and the possibility of the voluntary formation of 
character, the choice of principles of action. It would de- 
stroy the system of preparation for the Eternal World, under 
which we evidently are placed, and would make this world, 
instead of that, the world of retribution. On the theory 
that eternal retribution is true, it is impossible to make it 
a matter of experience in a world for the trial of character, 



310 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 



but it must be left as a matter of faith, as in the Scriptures. 
On the theory that it is not true, the Scriptures, which are 
the only authentic source of the idea of eternal retribution, 
and of all our information in regard to it, are, on that sub- 
ject, glaring with falsehood. On the theory that it is true, 
there is no conceivable mode of presenting it to the mind as 
an article of belief, which the Scriptures have not taken ; 
and their main power over the soul consists, in the acknowl- 
edgment even of those who deny the doctrine, in the awful 
terror in which the retributions of eternity are actually there 
shrouded. The dread power of the doctrine over Foster's 
own mind, proves the tremendous distinctness with which 
it has been someiohere revealed ; but an original distinct 
source of it anywhere but in the Word of God it is impos- 
sible to find, except we take the universal intimations of 
conscience in answer to that Word, and the intimations of 
retribution in the souls of the heathen, as such a source. 

Now it is a remarkable fact, that in regard to another 
fundamental truth of the Christian revelation, which Foster 
with his whole heart accepted, but which others have denied 
(as indeed, where is the truth revealed in the Scriptures 
which men may not deny, if they will, not being forced into 
conviction ?) he adopted a mode of reasoning diametrically 
opposite to that which he attempted in regard to eternal 
retribution, and destructive of it. In one of his admirable 
letters to Miss Saunders, after a simple repetition of many 
of the passages in the Word of God in regard to the atone- 
ment, he meets the objector thus : " There are persons who 
revolt at such a view of the foundation of all our hopes, and 
would say, Why might not the Almighty, of his mere im- 
mediate benevolence, pardon the offences of his frail crea- 
tures when they repent, without any such intermediation 
and vicarious suffering ? It is enough to answer, that 
Supreme Wisdom was the sole competent judge in the 
universe, of what was the plan most worthy of holiness and 
goodness ; and that, unless the New Testament be the most 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 311 

deceptive book that ever teas written, the plan actually ap- 
pointed is that of a suffering Mediator." 

Now, a candid mind cannot read the New Testament 
free of all attempt to evade its plain meaning, without find- 
ing the truth of an eternal retribution as fully and ex- 
plicitly revealed as that of a vicarious Redeemer. And 
to Foster's own objections on the score of his limited views 
of the Divine Benevolence, it is enough to answer, that Su- 
preme Wisdom was the sole competent judge in the universe 
of what was the plan most worthy of holiness and goodness ; 
and that unless the New Testament be the most deceptive 
book that ever was written, the plan actually appointed 
embraces an eternal retribution. 

Furthermore, if the condition of faith in a suffering 
Mediator be the only condition of eternal salvation, a truth 
fully received by Foster, then, on the ground of his own 
reasoning in regard to eternal retribution, that truth ought 
to have been so presented " as to leave no possibility of un- 
derstanding the language in a different equivocal or ques- 
tionable sense ;" it ought to have been so presented, as to 
render all " doubt or question a mere palpable absurdity." 
For if the danger of eternal retribution be so awful, as that 
God ought thus to force conviction on the soul, the only 
condition of eternal salvation is so infinitely important that 
he ought in like manner to force conviction of that also. 
And if any alleged possibility of doubt in regard to the 
meaning of the language is to be held a sufficient ground 
for denying the first, the same possibility is an equally suffi- 
cient ground for denying the last, and Foster's mode of rea- 
soning would cut the soul equally from the belief in a suf- 
fering mediator and an eternal retribution. But Mr. Foster 
never seems to have had the shadow of a thought that the 
condition of eternal salvation, as the only condition, was 
not revealed with sufficient distinctness, or that, if it be the 
only condition, it ought to be revealed with a power abso- 
lutely overwhelming, and forestalling all possibility of doubt. 



312 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

Why, then, attempt any such reasoning in regard to the 
truth of eternal retribution ? In neither case was it pos- 
sible to force conviction by experience ; in both cases the 
evidence comes as near to absolute physical demonstration, 
as could have been, without violating the laws of the human 
mind in regard to belief. In both cases the evidence is 
positive, clear, incontrovertible ; not to be set aside in any 
way without evasion ; and in every way so palpable, that 
if it be denied, the New Testament instantly becomes the 
most deceptive book that ever was written. 

Precisely the same reasoning annihilates the force of Mr. 
Foster's remarks as to the unreasonable shortness of the 
time of our probation, if an eternal retribution be the evil 
from which we are to escape. So, likewise, if the condi- 
tion of eternal salvation be the only condition on which 
man can be saved, a truth which Foster constantly, and 
with ail the power of his intellect, asserts, the shortness of 
the time of our probation is equally unreasonable for meet- 
ing that condition. The objection which would release the 
mind from its obligation to believe the one truth, is equally 
valid against the other ; though of utter futility and false- 
hood in both cases. And the same may be said of what 
Foster has advanced in regard to the preaching of the 
truth of eternal retribution ; namely, that if true, it ought 
to be screamed into the ears of every creature ; it ought to 
be proclaimed, as with the blast of a trumpet, " inculcated 
and reiterated, with ardent passion, in every possible form 
of terrible illustration, no remission of the alarm ; for the 
most prolonged thundering alarm is but as the note of an 
infant, a bird, or an insect, in proportion to the horrible 
urgency of the case." Assuredly the same may be said of 
the only condition of eternal salvation, that if true, it 
ought to be proclaimed in like manner, as with the blast of 
a trumpet, no remission of the alarm. 

And accordingly, it is so proclaimed ; both these mighty 
doctrines being true, they are, with equal passion, incul- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 313 

cated and reiterated, in every possible form of terrible il- 
lustration. The sacred writers do but turn from the one 
to enforce the other, and use the one to burn in the other ; 
so that the whole material of revelation, well-nigh, is the 
mutual support, reverberation, and " thundering," as well 
as persuasive proclamation of these truths. u Knowing 
the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." By his terrors 
we persuade them to embrace his love, and by his love we 
persuade them to shun his terrors. And this doctrine of a 
suffering Mediator, which Foster avows, is proclaimed with 
no less thundering alarm, than that doctrine of eternal 
retribution which he hastily and presumptuously rejects. 
" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and 
he that believeth not on the Son, shall not see life ; but the 
wrath of God abideth on him." 

It would have gone beyond even Mr. Foster's power in 
the use of human language, to have invented stronger 
terms than these, or to have proclaimed a suffering Media- 
tor and eternal retribution in notes of more thundering 
alarm. For the passage is, in spiritual meaning, power 
and distinctness, like the crash of an earthquake, like the 
thunder of the Almighty from one end of heaven to the 
other. And not to name the scores of similar notes of 
alarm " proportioned to the horrible urgency of the case," 
the passages in the sixth Hebrews, 4-6, and tenth Hebrews 
26-31, are sufficient examples of the united and equally 
awful sanctions of terror in preaching both a suffering 
Mediator and eternal retribution. These two elements in- 
deed are so combined in the Word of God, so indissolubly 
twisted together, so wrought into each other's fabric for 
mutual support, power, and illustration, that the one with- 
out the other is ineffectual, and can scarcely, by a logical 
mind, be received. 

And, in fact, in the very next breath after the utterance 
of Foster's demand for thundering alarm on the ground of 
eternal retribution, he does himself declare that the larger 

14 



314 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

proportion of what is said of sinners and addressed to them 
in the Bible, is plainly in a tone of menace and of terror. 
And he repeats the deliberate affirmation of Dr. Watts, 
that of all the persons to whom his ministry had been effi- 
cacious, only one had received the first effectual impressions 
from the gentle and attractive aspects of religion ; all the 
rest from the awful and alarming ones, the appeals to fear. 
And this, adds Foster, is all but universally the manner 
of the Divine process of conversion. 

Now what an inconsequence is here ! most strange in- 
deed for a reasoner like Foster. We have him in one 
breath demanding, as the result, enforcement, and proof 
of a certain doctrine which he doubts, that it be proclaimed, 
reiterated and thundered without cessation ; and in the 
next, declaring that such is the tenor of the Scriptures; 
and yet denying the doctrine, and in effect charging the 
Scriptures with proclaiming, reiterating and thundering an 
alarm, behind which there is no reality, and for which there 
is no foundation ! 

But worse than this, he proceeds to say that a number 
of ministers of his acquaintance have disbelieved the doc- 
trine, but yet have thought they should better consult their 
usefulness by appearing to teach it ; they were unwilling 
to incur the imputation of a want of orthodoxy, and they 
found the doctrine itself, even in its most terrible form, so 
strangely inefficacious to deter men from sin, that they 
" did not feel required to propound any qualification of it, 
since thoughtless and wicked men would be sure to seize 
on the mitigated doctrine to encourage themselves in their 
impenitence." This is but to say that, seeing that the 
truth failed to bring men to God, they thought they should 
be more useful by the inculcation of a lie. The lie being 
supposed by most men to be imbedded in God's Word as 
the truth, and being found the only effiacious means of re- 
claiming men from sin, these ministers have deemed it 
most useful to make use of the lie ! If this course be 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 315 

charged upon the Scriptures, it is one of the worst forms 
of blasphemy and infidelity. And how can this conse- 
quence be avoided ? On the supposition that the doctrine 
of eternal punishment is so taught in the Scriptures, as 
that nine-tenths of mankind find it there, and the most 
spiritual and heaven-instructed preachers proclaim it, and 
that it is, as thus understood,' the sole element of irresistible 
efficacy in the Scriptures, on what ground can the conclu- 
sion be avoided that the Scriptures are a book of " infinite 
deception" ? The difference between an eternal and a 
temporary retribution is infinite ; the propounding of an 
eternal retribution, if it be not true, is an infinite lie. 
And they who lend themselves to this are acting on the 
principle, on which the great Apostasy has been builded, 
and to which is annexed the seal of the Divine reprobation, 
" Let us do evil that good may come." 

Of the disingenuousness of such a course as Mr. Foster 
describes in the ministers of his acquaintance, their preach- 
ing or apparent preaching of this doctrine in public, their 
disbelief of it in private, and their whisperings and circula- 
tions of such disbelief in familiar circles, we need say noth- 
ing. We wonder that a mind of such independence, noble- 
ness, integrity, sincerity, and fearlessness as Mr. Foster's, 
could have been warped at all into any excuse of such a 
course, much less any sanction of it by example. The 
habit of such casuistry must be powerful beneath the 
teachings of an Established Church, which propounds 
Thirty-Nine Articles of belief to be sworn upon as the con- 
ditions of earthly emolument and usefulness, with the un- 
derstood provision that the oath of belief may or may not 
mean belief according to the opinion of the swearer. But 
out of the Establishment could it have been supposed that 
such casuistry would prevail ? Let a man believe or 
disbelieve at his pleasure, and if he chooses, teach it wholly, 
or keep it to himself. " While it remained, was it not 
thine own? And when it was sold, was it not in thine 



316 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

own power ?" But to appear to preach it in public, and 
in private to circulate the mischief of unbelief; in public 
to proclaim the terrors of the Lord, in private to reduce 
them to a vast and glaring deception ; in public to main- 
tain the sanctions of the law, in private to disarm them by 
reasonings against the penalty ; — this is a course which 
nothing can justify, and which tends to unsettle the foun- 
dations of theology and morality together. 

In reference to Foster himself, the truth seems to be 
that his own mind was never really settled on this subject, 
but was swayed to and fro, and sometimes, perhaps, in 
dreadful agitation. In no other way can we account for 
the inconsistencies of his reasonings, and the contradiction 
between the menacing tenor of his writings in the prospect 
of the Eternal World, and the hesitating plunge into a 
complete denial of eternal retribution in his letter to a stu- 
dent in theology. But then, what a picture of vagueness 
and indetermination in theological opinion is presented in a 
man, whose practical writings are of so definite, compact 
and powerful a tissue, and whose personal solemn impres- 
sions of the eternal world make many of his pages look as 
if written in the light of the vast pyre of eternal burnings ! 
We cannot but contrast what we have seen him saying in 
1841, with his opinion and advice on the same subject in 
1801. In that year he had occasion to write to the Rev. 
Dr. Ryland a criticism upon one of the Doctor's sermons, 
the subject of which was the eternal punishment of the 
wicked. It is said to have been a sermon in its delivery 
eminently powerful and successful, and Foster himself 
acknowledged in very strong terms the ingenuity, the 
variety, and the forcible description with which it abounded. 
But we can easily conceive that a sermon of this character 
which would be powerful and useful preached from the 
heart of a man glowing like Paul with love to the souls of 
his audience, might not be so well fitted for the press, 
without the tones and persuasions of the preacher. Mr. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 317 

Foster advised him to keep it without printing, and told 
him he was afraid that those who had expatiated most on 
infernal subjects had felt them the least. But he did not 
tell him, as he did forty years afterwards the student in 
theology, that if the tremendous doctrine were true, surely 
it ought to be almost continually proclaimed as with the 
blast of a trumpet, inculcated and reiterated, with ardent 
passion, in every possible form of terrible illustration. But 
he said that it struck him as a kind of Christian cruelty 
to go into such illustration, and he gave an opinion in 
regard to the voice of the New Testament on the subject, 
which for the sake of comparison and contrast we place 
beside his opinion on the same at a later period. 

1801. 1841. 

The utmost space I would allot in I do say. that to make the milder 
my writings to this part of the revela- suasives : the gentle language of love, 
tions of our religion, should not. at the main resource, is not in consis- 
any rate exoed the proportion which tency with the spirit of the Bible, in 
in the New Testament this part of which the larger proportion of what 
truth bears to the whole of the sacred is said of sinners, and addressed to 
book, the grand predominant spirit of them, is plainly in a tone of menace 
which is love and mercy. and alarm. Strange if it had been 

otherwise, when a righteous Governor 
was speaking to a depraved, rebel- 
lious race. 

It would seem that Foster had not, on this subject, come 
to the Scripures to settle his mind there, with the same 
unhesitating acquiescence and faith, with which he received 
from the same Scriptures the doctrine of a suffering Me- 
diator. And it would seem that he had not looked very 
narrowly into the profound and fundamental connection of 
the great truths of the Gospel scheme with one another, 
and their mutual dependence on each other for their sep- 
arate demonstration, sanction and power. He was not 
what can be called a profound theologian, neither in the 
Scriptures, nor in the systematic study of theology. He 
never pretended to be. Nor is this a derogation from the 



318 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

greatness of his merit and the originality and power of his 
thoughts as a practical writer ; though we love to see the 
tide of practical thought and emotion sustained, compressed, 
and, so to speak, flung back upon itself, by a rock-bound 
coast of theoretical systematic truth, which offers points of 
command over the ocean, and strong harbors where the 
soul may securely ride at anchor. But Foster carried his 
mental independence, and his hatred of the restraint of 
systems, to the verge of error. He would have been a 
more useful preacher, a more massive thinker, a more com- 
prehensive writer, had his mind, from an early period, been 
more deeply imbedded in the knowledge of the Scriptures. 
On whatever point a man's anchorage does not hold, there 
his reasoning is unsafe. 

That Foster could have reasoned on the ground of mere 
prejudice and doubt, without taking into view known and 
admitted facts and relations, would have seemed incredible. 
And yet in the instance of the future retribution he has 
done it. He has adopted a line of reasoning with an ad- 
mission in the course of it fatal to the very principle of 
the argument ; a line of reasoning taking up in its course 
a mighty fact to support it, which overthrows it completely 
from its very foundation. He brings in the agency of 
Satan, the intervention and activity of the great Tempter 
and Destroyer, to lessen our sense of the desert of endless 
punishment in man, and thus to make the truth of such 
punishment appear inconsistent with the Divine goodness ; 
not appearing to remember that the admission of the truth 
of the Scriptures in regard to the existence and agency of 
such a Tempter and Destroyer, is inevitably the admission 
of an eternal state of sin and suffering ; which is as incon- 
sistent with the Divine benevolence in reference to Satan 
and the fallen angels, as it would be with reference to man. 
Eternal retribution being once admitted in reference to any 
created sinful intelligences, must be admitted in reference 
to all ; the disproportion between endless misery and any 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 319 

limited duration of punishment being infinitely greater 
than any possible disproportion between the guilt of one 
class of finite sinful intelligences and another class. It 
could not possibly consist with the Divine benevolence, to 
punish one class of sinners eternally, and not another. 
Admitting, therefore, the sin and the punishment of Satan, 
you have overthrown the very foundation of any argument 
against the Divine benevolence, from the truth of eternal 
retribution as propounded in the Scriptures. This Mr. 
Foster has done : taking up thus into the texture of his 
argument, (which, indeed, is but a texture of doubts and 
reasonings from mere emotion) a fact that rots the whole 
of it, a single thread that turns it all to dust. It is as if 
a man should attempt to pass off as a costly antique, a vase 
that has on it the name of the manufacturer at Potsdam. 
It is like the attempt to prove that Moses was mistaken 
in the date of the world by a temple alleged to have been 
built before the deluge, but in which a hieroglyphical in- 
scription being read, fixes the time of its erection under 
the Roman Empire. Bringing up Satan as the Tempter 
of man, to prop up an argument against Eternal Retribu- 
tion as inconsistent with the benevolence of God, Mr. 
Foster has merely produced an instance of an intelligent, 
sinful being, actually suffering such retribution ; an in- 
stance which inspiration itself lays hold of to prove the 
certainty of such retribution, in the case of wicked men* 
" For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast 
them down to hell, the Lord knoweth how to reserve the 
unjust unto the Day of Judgment, to be punished." We 
take the case of Satan as being, in Mr. Foster's argument, 
a case of eternal retribution ; for we do not suppose that 
Mr. Foster would have admitted a possibility of Satan ever 
being converted, or as he would rather have phrased it, 
ever being brought under the economy of grace. The 
existence of an immortal being so malignant as to make 
the perdition of immortal beings his delight, is the exist- 



320 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER* 

ence of eternal sin and misery ; and that being given, the 
argument against the Divine goodness from eternal retribu- 
tion, is as futile as would be an argument against the 
Divine existence from the alleged eternity of matter. 

The great truth of the atonement was another admitted, 
practical, sun-like fact, which Foster held, most fully and 
firmly, but yet maintained an absolute insensibility to its 
bearing upon this point of an endless retribution. Either 
there was a voluntary absence and denial of any effort of 
his attention that way, an anxious withdrawal of his mind 
from that conclusion, almost as if he had said within him- 
self, " That way madness lies;" or there was an original 
defectiveness in his reception of the doctrine, a sheer cut- 
ting away of the whole of one side of the atonement from 
his moral vision. His reasoning on one divine truth apart 
from its connection with and dependence on another, was 
as if a natural philosopher should reason on the motion of 
the tides, without taking into consideration the influence 
of the moon ; or should undertake to predict the moon's 
changes, without considering her position with respect to 
the san. 

There are three ways in which the Atonement may be 
disposed of to favor the doctrine of universal salvation. 
The fir&t is the utter denial and rejection of it, as needless 
in the government of God, and in the economy of the 
human system. This summary mode is in favor with 
many. 

The second expedient is to extend the virtue of the 
Atonement over the whole human race, irrespective of 
moral character, as also of the question whether the expe- 
dient of salvation offered to the race is accepted of by them. 
But a God who could save men without repentence, might 
as well have saved them without an atonement. This 
second expedient was not admitted by Mr. Foster, for he 
made eternal salvation dependent on the condition of re- 
pentance and faith. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 321 

The third plan is, that of saving some by the Atone- 
ment through faith, and leaving the rest to be saved by 
suffering the penalty of the Divine law, that penalty, as 
pretended, not being eternal. This seems to have been the 
view taken by Mr. Foster. On the least profound exami- 
nation it is full of palpable absurdities. The idea of an 
atonement at all, if salvation could come in any other way, is 
absurd. The idea of an atonement for some, and purgatory 
for others, is absurd. The idea of an atonement because the 
Divine attributes required it, is rendered absurd by the sup- 
position of the salvation of some without it. If any could be 
saved by punishment irrespective of an atonement, nay, hav- 
ing despised and rejected an atonement, why not all ? The 
idea of the innocent suffering for the guilty is absurd, if the 
guilty can be saved by suffering for themselves. The idea 
of the innocent suffering for the guilty because God could 
not save them in any other way consistent with the honor 
of eternal justice, is made perfectly absurd the moment 
you suppose any to be saved through their own suffering. 
But such is the case with those who suffer the penalty of 
the divine law, if that penalty be not endless. They serve 
out their time, they sin, and suffer for it the appointed 
measure of suffering, and are restored. Suffering is their 
savior, irrespective of an atonement. They have nothing 
to do with Christ. 

But the only ground on which divine revelation propounds 
the atonement by the innocent suffering for the guilty, is 
because it was not consistent with the divine attributes to 
pardon the guilty in any other way. " For myself," says 
Mr. Foster, " I never feel any difficulty in conceiving that 
while the Divine mercy would save guilty beings from de- 
served punishment, it should yet be absolutely necessary to 
the honor of eternal justice that an awful infliction should 
fall somewhere." But in Foster's plan it falls both upon 
the innocent and the guilty ; for while he supposes those 
who trust in the sufferings of the innocent to be saved by 

14* 



322 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

them, he also supposes those who do not trust in those suf- 
ferings, but despise them, to be saved by their own, saved 
by the endurance of the penalty of the law, which, they 
might say, we can well afford to endure, there being an 
eternity of blessedness afterwards. The idea of an atone- 
ment for part of the human race, and salvation for the rest 
by limited suffering, is well nigh the most absurd that ever 
was broached in all theological speculation. And yet this 
is absolutely Mr. Foster's idea, believing, as he seems to 
have endeavored to do, that all mankind will be saved after 
a limited endurance of the penalty. 

A limited endurance of the penalty ! Here we strike 
upon another remarkable inconsistency in Mr. Foster's 
mind and train of reasoning ; remarkable for him, because 
it could not have been supposed that a severely disciplined 
mind would have admitted it. He institutes a moral ar- 
gument from " the stupendous idea of eternity," and he 
goes the whole length of supposing that man's necessary 
ignorance and narrow faculty of apprehending it precludes 
him from having a competent notion of it, and so inevitably 
prevents the salutary force of an impression from the threat 
of an eternal retribution. But if incompetent to comprehend 
the idea of unlimited duration of punishment, then neces- 
sarily incompetent to apprehend any approximation to that 
idea, and consequently the smaller and more limited the 
nature of the threatened retribution, the more powerful its 
effect upon the mind. The power of the impression increases 
in an inverse ratio to the magnitude of the danger. This 
is a strict and inevitable result from Foster's reasoning. 
He endeavors to institute a series of approximations to the 
idea of eternal misery, and then showing that they all fail, 
he demands that man, if there is an eternal retribution for 
sin, u be apprized of the nature and measure of the penal 
consequence." He intimates that it is something " totally 
out of the scope of his faculties to apprehend," and therefore 
unfit to deter him. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 323 

But what is it about which Mr. Foster is reasoning, and 
on which, in its very definiteness and supremacy of horror, 
he founds his whole argument against the doctrine, as 
against the goodness of God ? Why, it is the actual, over- 
whelming and intolerable dreadfulness of this very judg- 
ment, of eternal misery ; a thing so overwhelming and in- 
tolerable, that the human soul starts back from it aghast. 
It is then, after all, a thing of which the human soul may 
form a very definite conception ; and the consequence in- 
evitably is that it is of all things the best adapted to deter 
the soul from sin. And if that soul can form such a con- 
ception of it as to reason against it, because it is so su- 
premely horrible, it must, if once admitted on the authority 
of God, constitute a deterring impression against sin, of an 
energy that all the motives in the universe cannot equal. 

Mr. Foster's reasoning oversets itself at every step ; and 
if this be the material out of which the private conversations 
of unbelief in eternal retribution, of which he speaks as 
among certain ministers, were composed, we wonder at the 
occultation of reason which must, on this subject, have 
come over the intellectual circle. Nor can we conceive in 
what school of intellectual philosophy a circle of minds 
could have been disciplined, to reason so disastrously con- 
cerning those spiritual ideas, which are the birthright and 
possession of the soul in its very constitution. The idea of 
eternity is perhaps the simplest and most omnipresent of all 
our ideas ; the easiest to be appealed to, the most universal 
and absolute ; pervading the mind like an unconscious at- 
mosphere, and brooding over it even more constitutionally 
than the idea of the immortality of the soul. Eternity is, 
indeed, a simple idea, one of the inevitable forms in which 
the human reason works, if it works at all. There is no 
possible approximation to it, or forming of it, by measures 
or degrees ; the soul overleaps them all, and is beyond 
them ; it is there in eternity, it was there before them. 
They may help to awaken the consciousness of the soul, 



324 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

and quicken its sensibilities, but they cannot give the idea ; 
just as a galvanic machine may quicken a palsied nerve, 
but cannot impart or create life. It is in the soul, a law 
and development of its reason, or computations could no 
more impart it, than they could to the beasts that perish. 
Mr. Foster says, " all that is within human capacity is to 
imagine the vastest measures of time, and to look to the 
termination of these, as only touching the mere commence- 
ment of eternity. 55 But the absolute falsity of this propo- 
sition in the philosophy of the human mind is quite demon- 
strable. It reminds us of a humorous and powerful exhi- 
bition of its absurdity by John Paul Richter. 

Nor is the " feeble efficacy of the terrible doctrine itself 
as notionally admitted 55 owing to any incompetency in the 
mind to apprehend it ; for this would convey a dread im- 
putation indeed against the goodness and justice of the Cre- 
ator, in putting under an eternal moral accountability a 
race of creatures whom he had made absolutely incompe- 
tent to apprehend the idea of eternity ! And this is but 
one of the monstrous consequences, which would follow 
from Mr. Foster 5 s argument ; the grossest fatuity, we had 
almost said, that ever a great intellect was betrayed into. 

But the feebleness of that efficacy is owing to the volun- 
tary moral insensibility of the soul to all spiritual ideas and 
apprehensions ; a consequence of its depravity and not of 
its constitution. And that depravity is such, that we ap- 
prehend present self-interest outweighs even the considera- 
tion of eternal consequences, unseen, and infinitely more 
so of any merely limited consequences. The habit of 
looking at and living for the things which are seen and 
temporal produces an utter insensibility to the things un- 
seen and eternal ; so that, though the idea of eternity is 
full, clear, and simple in the intellect, it is not admitted 
into the heart ; there is a disconnection between it, and the 
practical affections, as between the brain and the nerves in 
the case of some forms of paralysis. But still the idea 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 325 

rules as a monarch in the intellect, and exerts in its turn 
a paralyzing power over all motives, all forms of induce- 
ment, addressed to the soul as based upon anything less 
than eternity. The idea of eternity in the soul reduces 
to ashes, as an omnipotent magician, whatever accumula- 
tions, either of horrors or beatitudes, may be attempted be- 
fore it in any duration short of eternity. Such tricks of 
accumulation, though the forces of the planetary universe 
were called in aid of the computation, as Foster has done, 
are as a hollow jugglery, which the soul sees through in an 
instant, and darts beyond, infinitely out of the reach of all 
limited efficacy. So that it may with truth be said that a 
being to whom God has given the idea of eternity, is ab- 
solutely beyond the reach of efficacy even by omnipotence, 
with anything less than eternity. A mind with all the 
intense energy of thought and language, and all the power 
of imagery, that not only Foster, but an archangel could 
command, might exhaust itself in piling horrors upon hor- 
rors, with all forms of illustration supplied by the universe, 
and all exclamations of dread before the misery of incom- 
putable ages of torment; but the soul, darting into the eter- 
nity beyond, exulting spreads its wings in triumph ; and 
laughs at the scarecrows of a limited duration. A depraved 
man, assured of an eternity of blessedness, will be affected 
by nothing less than an eternity of misery. It is absolutely 
in this way that the power of this idea of eternity is most 
thoroughly tested among mortals, by its rendering ineffica* 
cious all ideas but those drawn from eternity, and on the 
other hand, the power of human depravity is tested and 
demonstrated in this, more than anything else — its power to 
render the inducements of eternity itself absolutely ineffica- 
cious unless wielded by the Almighty. 

There is in one of Mr. Foster's valuable articles on 
Chalmer's Astronomical Discourses a most impressive ar- 
gument as to the necessity of an eternal and infinite demon- 
stration of the Divine Omnipotence and Wisdom, by a 



326 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

practical boundlessness in the created universe ; the mighty 
tracts of creation sweeping endlessly along, and merging 
into an awful and mysterious infinity. The greatest of 
created beings will never to all eternity be able to survey 
the whole of the material creation. " For must it not be 
one great object in the Creator's design, that this magni- 
tude should make a sublime and awful impression on his 
intelligent creatures ? But if the magnitude is to make 
this impression, what would be the impression made on 
created spirits by their coming to the end, the boundary, 
of this magnitude ? It is palpable that this latter impres- 
sion must counteract the former. So that if the stupen- 
dous extension of the works of God was intended and 
adapted to promote, in the contemplations of the highest 
intelligences, an infinitely glorious, though still incompe- 
tent conception of the Divine infinity, the ascertaining of 
the limit, the distinct perception of the finiteness, of that 
manifestation of power, would tend with a dreadful force 
to repress and annihilate that conception ; and it may well 
be imagined that if an exalted adoring spirit could ever in 
eternity find itself at that limit, the perception would in- 
flict inconceivable horror." Each of the elements of the 
manifestation of an Infinite Being, therefore, Mr. Foster 
argues, will have a practical infiniteness relative to the ca- 
pacities of his intelligent creatures ; and the universe itself 
must be one, of which it shall not be within the possibili- 
ties of any intelligence less than the infinite to know the 
termination. 

Now this is truly important and powerful as to the true 
nature of our idea of eternity, and the worthlessness of any 
impression as a motive on the soul of an immortal being, 
which does not coincide in its extent with its own and the 
Divine existence. If this reasoning holds good in regard to 
God's Omnipotence, much more in regard to his moral 
perfections. If the utmost conception of creative vastness 
and glory possible to a created mind, would be reduced to 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 327 

an overwhelming impression of littleness on coming to the 
absolute limit of its display in the bosom of eternity, how 
much more in regard to any and every manifestation of 
God's moral attributes. 

If an adequate impression of the Divine perfection of 
omnipotence be required to be produced, Foster's reasoning 
shows that anything absolutely short of eternity is nothing ; 
nay, is of a force the contrary way. And so, if an adequate 
impression of the Divine holiness is requisite in the sanc- 
tions of the Divine law, anything short of eternity in that 
is equally of force the contrary way. If an adequate im- 
pression of terror for sinful beings under a respite of mercy 
on certain conditions be required, an adequate deterring im- 
pression by the penalty of the law, Foster's own reasoning 
shows that anything short of eternity would fail. The eter- 
nal and infinite dreadfulness of disobedience could not be 
shown by anything less than eternal suffering on account 
of disobedience ; the eternal and infinite dreadfulness and 
terribleness of sin, if required to be manifested in extent, 
would sink into an impression of nothingness, when the 
absolute limit of the evil should be reached. 

And the experiment having once been tried, we can as- 
sume with certainty that the universe of created intelli- 
gences would feel released from all fear of God as to any 
consequences of rebellion against him. The penalty would 
be the scorn of all evil beings, and no object, either of soli- 
citude, of confidence, or of reverence, to good beings. The 
arrival at the end of it would inflict inconceivable horror on 
those spirits who have looked to it as the manifestation of 
the Divine holiness and justice, and the protection of them- 
selves, and of the interests of the universe against the en- 
croachments of sin, and would fill with inconceivable exul- 
tation and delight those spirits, who, in spite of its threaten- 
ings, have dared to rebel. And we can conceive of a period 
in duration, from which all that has been passed through of 
suffering, though in a circle of ages beyond the possibility 



328 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

of human computation, would be looked upon as less than 
the remembrance, by a man on the verge of three score 
years and ten, of the sting of a wasp, or the minutest emo- 
tion of sorrow in his childhood. 

But if the creation of the universe be assumed as under- 
taken for the display of the Divine perfections, the govern- 
ment of that universe by rewards and punishments must be 
so assumed, much more. And consequently, on Foster's 
own reasoning, the extent of such display in each of these 
directions, in each of the elements of the manifestation of an 
Infinite Being, must have a practical infiniteness, relative 
to the capacities of his intelligent creatures ; and the demon- 
stration of the terribleness of sin, and of God's holiness and 
justice in the punishment of sin, must be one, of which it 
shall not be within the possibilities of any intelligence less 
than the Infinite to know the termination. We wonder 
that this necessary consequence of Foster's argument should 
not have occurred to his own mind, when pressed with doubt 
and difficulty in the doctrine of eternal punishment. 

Some of the questions respecting our state in the future 
world, which Foster was ever proposing to his own mind, 
are comparatively trifling, though invested with a solemn 
curiosity of spirit that communicates its own mysterious 
shade to every article of inquiry ; reminding us of the illus- 
tration, which Coleridge has somewhere used, that the 
colors of the chameleon darken in the shadow of him who 
bends over to look at it. So the mind of Mr. Foster sees 
in the eternal world a reflection of his own dim imaginings, 
instead of the realities which a man may and must see, if 
he looks through the telescope of God's Word, and not the 
smoky glass of his own fancies. Mr. Foster's letter to Rev. 
Mr. Clowes, the 213th in the biographical collection, writ- 
ten in the 70th year of his life, in regard to the intermediate 
state, is an interesting exhibition of the posture of his spirit. 
He sets out with " assuming in entire confidence the soul's 
consciousness after death ; this is implied in many passages 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 329 

of Scripture ; but a number of them, often cited, assert it 
in so plain a manner, that nothing but the most resolute 
perversity of criticism can attempt to invalidate them." 

And could Mr. Foster have admitted anything less than 
this, concerning the number and vast variety of passages 
which teach so clearly the doctrine of an eternal retribution ? 
On some of those passages the very truth of the soul's con- 
sciousness after death hinges. Why did not Mr. Foster 
apply his canon of judgment to the consideration of eternal 
retribution, asserted in those passages in so plain a manner 
that nothing but the most resolute perversity of criticism 
can attempt to invalidate them ? 

But he goes on in this interesting letter, to present a 
variety of questions, which he would put to a messenger 
from the unseen world, could he have such an one to con- 
verse with, and intimates his opinion that we are, by some 
punitive dispensation, " denied such a knowledge of the in- 
visible world, as would have tended to make the prospect of 
that world more iniluentiaUy impressive." 

In view of such a singular position as this, we cannot but 
bring a previous state of Mr. Foster's own mind in contrast 
with it. There is a most striking passage in his introduc- 
tion to Doddridge's Rise and Progress, in which he dwells 
upon the mighty assemblage of considerations, that should 
irresistibly compel a careless soul to thought-fulness, but to 
which it is insensible. " The very emanations of heaven, 
radiating downwards to where you dwell, are intercepted 
and do not reach you. It is the frequent reflection of a 
thoughtful mind in observing you, — what ideas, what truths, 
what mighty appeals, belong to the condition of this one 
man and of that, devoted and enslaved to the world ? Oh ! 
why is it impossible to bring them into application ? A 
few minutes of time would be sufficient for the annuncia- 
tion of what, if it could be received by them in its simple, 
unexaggerated importance, would stop that one man's gay 
career, as if a great serpent had raised its head in his path ; 



330 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

would confound that other's calculation for emolument ; 
would bring a sudden dark eclipse on that third man's vis- 
ions of fame ; would tear them all from their inveterate and 
almost desperate combination with what is to perish, and 
amidst their surprise and terror would excite an emotion of 
joy that they had been dissevered before it was too late, 
from an object that was carrying them down a rapid declina- 
tion towards destruction. And the chief of these things, 
so potent if applied, are not withheld as if secreted and 
silent in some dark cloud, from which we had to invoke 
them to break forth in lightning : they are actually ex- 
hibited in the Divine revelation" 

There are, then, things enough revealed from that invis- 
ible world, emanations from Heaven radiating downwards, 
alarming ideas and mighty appeals enough, if men would 
look at them, to render the prospect of that world so influ* 
entially impressive, that if a bolt of thunder had fallen, or 
the ground had opened at his feet, or a great serpent had 
reared its head in his path, it would not tend more cer- 
tainly to arrest our steps, to tear us from our desperate 
combination with what is to perish. And these things aro 
not withheld, secreted, or silent in a dark cloud, but they 
actually break forth in lightning from the Divine revela- 
tion ! This is the impression of a mind beholding these 
things itself, and endeavoring to take hold of them, to turn 
them, as by an infallible and potent conductor of the light- 
ning, upon the insensible minds of others. Mr. Foster, in 
this state of open spiritual vision, sees through the Word 
of God these " mighty truths, requisitions, overtures, prom- 
ises, portents, menaces, close to the sinner, suspended just 
over him, of a nature to demolish the present state of his 
mind, if brought in contact with it," and the insensibility of 
the man amidst all this, is with him a matter of " indignant 
speculation," and he is " excited to a benevolent impatience, 
a restless wish, that things so near and important to the 
man should take hold upon him." He wishes that an 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 331 

austere apparition, as from the dead, might accost him, 
who is living as if life were never to have an end ! 

This is the mood of mind, this the state of vision, this 
the anxiety of heart, in a man endeavoring to urge upon 
others the importance of religion. But how different the 
speculative letter of the same being at seventy years of age. 
He wishes for something from the invisible world, more 
influentially impressive ! He begs for a few of the special 
facts of that world, " that might keep our minds directed 
under a graver impression, to a preparation for it." And 
with the declaration of our Saviour directly before his 
mind, — neither would they believe, though one rose from 
the dead, — he endeavors to diminish the amount of the 
meaning of that declaration, to what is barely and abso- 
lutely necessary to understand by it. A state of mind so 
singularly obstinate against any but compulsory conviction, 
assuredly comes near to that very disease of unbelief, of 
which our Saviour speaks. What revelation could be 
made to satisfy it ? Here again is Thomas among the 
disciples. Believe on such evidence ? Show me the print 
of the nails, and let me thrust my hand into his side ! 

Mr. Foster goes on. . " We must submit to feel that we 
are in the dark. ... A contemplative spirit hovers with 
insuppressible inquisitiveness about the dark frontier, beyond 
which it knows that wonderful realities are existing — reali- 
ties of greater importance to it than the whole world on this 
side of that limit. We watch for some glimpse through 
any part of the solemn shade." Would not one imagine 
that he were in the presence of some highly-cultivated and 
powerful pagan mind, without a revelation, soliloquizing on 
the unimaginable future, as a dark, unfathomed, palpable 
obscure, rather than listening to the speculations of the 
greatest minds in the world, under the full light of the 
Christian dispensation ! This is one of the most remark- 
able examples on record of that perversity of mind, which 
suffers its ignorance and impatience about that which is 



332 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

unknown, to diminish its confidence, and obscure its per- 
ceptions, in regard to that which is known. 

Now, in regard to the detail of Divine revelation, there 
can be no doubt that both the amount of light given and 
that withheld, the subjects made to stand out in clearest 
day, and those held back in comparative obscurity, the 
degree, the distribution, the direction of that light, and the 
combination of light and shade, are exactly what is re- 
quired for a perfect revelation to mortals in our state. To 
give the realities of the future world their full power over 
our minds in this world, there must be that sublime and 
awful mingling of the definite with the indefinite, which 
presents absolute truth, but truth which carries us wander- 
ing through eternity ; there must be that absence of all 
such exactness, as would make the inquisitive speculator 
say, Now I have it all under my command and comprehen- 
sion. Had the revelation been occupied with answers to 
such inquiries as Mr. Foster demanded, its power over the 
soul would have been immeasurably lessened. It is the 
solemn reserve of the Scriptures in regard to such compar- 
atively unimportant questions and particulars, and their 
solemn and awful fulness and clearness as to great funda- 
mental truths, that constitutes one of the greatest inciden- 
tal proofs of their Divine inspiration ; their fulness on all 
points essential to the soul's eternal interests ; their reserve 
on all points of mere intellectual and speculative inquisi- 
tiveness ; on all points on which men would have resorted 
to fulness and minuteness in their communications, on 
purpose to excite and attract the curiosity and admiration 
of mankind. Revelation would have greatly lost its power 
to keep the mind directed under a grave impression of pre- 
paration for the eternal world, if it had been constructed 
and arranged according to Mr. Foster's demands. 

And the nature of Mr. Foster's own unsophisticated, 
almost unconscious impressions, and the amazing power 
with which he could convey them, in regard to what awaits 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 333 

the soul in eternity, may be much better learned from his 
practical writings, than his impatient speculative question- 
ings. Take, for example, his incidental passage in regard 
to the death of Hume. After examining the manner of 
the philosopher in meeting death, the low and labored jokes, 
the suspicious buffoonery, by which his companions could 
be so much diverted, but which looked much like " the ex- 
pedient of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in 
the night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to persuade 
his companion that he does not feel it ;" he observes that 
" to a man who solemnly believes the truth of revelation, 
and therefore the threatenings of Divine vengeance 
against the despisers of it, this scene will present as 
mournful a spectacle, as perhaps the sun ever shone upon. 
We here behold a man of great talents and invincible per- 
severance, entering on his career with the profession of an 
impartial inquiry after truth, met at every stage and step 
by the evidences and expostulations of religion and the 
claims of his Creator, but devoting his labors to the pur- 
suit of fame and the promotion of impiety, at length ac- 
quiring and accomplishing, as he declared himself, all he 
had intended and desired, and descending towards the close 
of life amidst tranquillity, widely extending reputation, and 
the homage of the great and the learned. We behold him 
appointed soon to appear before the Judge, to whom he had 
never alluded but with malice or contempt ; yet preserving 
to appearance an entire self-complacency, idly jesting about 
his approaching dissolution, and mingling with the insane 
sport his references to the fall of superstition, a term of 
which the meaning is hardly even dubious when expressed 
by such men. We behold Mm at last carried off, and ive 
seem to hear, the following moment, from the darkness in 
which he vanishes, the shriek of surprise and terror, and 
the overpowering accents of the messenger of vengeance. 
On the ivhole globe there probably was not acting at the 
time, as mournful a tragedy as that of which the friends 



334 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

of Hume were the spectators, without being aware that it 
was any tragedy at all" 

Now we need not say that the sentences in this impres- 
sive paragraph marked in italics convey a more solemn and 
effective impression by far, than if their place had been 
supplied by anything more definite. The soul broods over 
the awful undefined imagery covered up in darkness, yet 
half disclosed in light, behind which the great fact of sud- 
den and terrific vengeance rushes with overwhelming cer- 
tainty. 

We have spoken of the morbid passion for doubts, or 
rather, we ought to say, the fascination by them, and ir- 
resistible drawing towards them, as a bird to the glitter of 
the serpent's eye, beneath which the great mind of Foster 
seemed sometimes wrestling. His was not the depravity 
of unbelief, but the temptation. "If thou be the Son of 
God, command these stones that they be made bread," 
Some men feed upon doubts, and search for them, and 
make sale of them. And some men pretend to sport with 
them even on the brink of the grave ; u a low vivacity," 
said Foster, in the case of Hume, " which seems but like 
the quickening corruption of a mind, whose faculty for 
perception is putrefying and dissolving even before the 
body." 

But Foster did not seek for doubts ; they were borne in 
upon bim ; they were a source of anguish to him. A man 
who loves them is likely to perish by them. We have 
heard of men, in search of mud-turtles, held by the viscous 
soil till the tide flowed over them, and they were drowned ; 
or of men digging mud itself in their boat, and sinking 
with it; some minds are swamped in the same manner. 

There are subjects on which it is impossible not to doubt; 
and the plainest truths of revelation may be driven to ex- 
tremes beyond the limit of human faculties. The attri- 
butes of God, and the elements of our own being may be 
tortured with questions, that admit of no other answer 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 335 

than an unquestioning- acquiescence in the Divine Wis- 
dom. On some of these questions, if created minds were 
left to themselves in controversy, it would be eternal. The 
one party might invent arguments that would seem in 
their explosion to level all the ranks of the justifiers of the 
ways of God to man, like Satan's new artillery against the 
seried files of angels. But they again might be over- 
whelmed with arguments like the seated hills, and together 
so the war would be eternal. There is nothing but the 
coming of Messiah himself that can calm the soul, and 
stay the surges of its chaos. 

We cannot help attributing most of the defects and 
difficulties in Mr. Foster's theological views to the low 
position he was content to keep through life in regard to 
personal experience in the great things of religion. He 
had but little animating faith in the power of religion, be- 
cause he looked at it and experienced it more through the 
medium of human imperfections, cares, anxieties, troubles, 
distractions, than of Divine grace. He did not look into 
the perfect law of liberty, nor hold up to his own view, and 
the view of others, the examples in the New Testament. 
To use one of his own illustrations, applied in conversation 
to another subject, his piety did not rise high enough to 
keep the sharp and rugged prominences of truth, which 
reason cannot scale with safety, beneath the surface ; be- 
cause his own experience was not deeper, they rose, or 
were suffered to rise, into occasions of mischief and diffi- 
culty. Had the powerful spring-tide of piety as well as 
mind overflowed his being, there would have been no 
breakers in the sea. Had Foster's mind been lifted, for 
example, to a post of observation like that of Edwards, 
when he wrote the history of Human Redemption, what a 
very different view he w r ould have taken of the economy 
of human existence with its lurid shades. He has such a 
post now, we doubt not, amidst the " sanctities of heaven." 

The truth of eternal retribution is a citadel defended 



336 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

by many batteries. So fast as to the vision of an enemy 
one seems to be demolished, another rises. In the Scrip- 
tures, in human reason, from analogy, from the nature of 
things, from the character of God, from the character of 
man, the evidence is solemn and overwhelming. You may 
play your game of escape, if the laws of evidence be dis- 
regarded, but with one who holds you to logical conclusions, 
in every possible move you are check-mated, You cannot 
put the various doctrines of the Bible in any relative array 
but they lead to this ; you cannot exclude this from any 
possible combination. And any one of the elements of the 
Scriptural problem given, may lead you through the whole 
circle of Truth. Given, the atonement ; to find the cha- 
racter of man, and its relation to the element of retribu- 
tion ; — that would do it. Or, given, the character of man 
and the character of God ; to find the element of retribu- 
tion ; that would do it. Or, given, the necessity of Divine 
grace to fit the soul for heaven, the atonement being the 
sole condition of that grace ; to find the element of retribu- 
tion; that would do it. Or, given, the existence and 
agency of fallen spirits to find man's retribution ; that 
would do it. Or, given, the bare offer of eternal life ; that 
would do it. Or, given, the benevolence of God, the axiom 
of the universe, God is Love ; that would do it. For all 
retribution is invested with the atmosphere of love, and 
had not God been Love, he might have let the guilty go 
unpunished. But Justice only does the work of love, and 
Love works by Justice for the purity and blessedness of the 
universe. Where there is sin, love without wrath, with- 
out retribution, would only be connivance with iniquity. 
There is no such thing as love without justice, or justice 
without penalty, or penalty without execution, or execu- 
tion ivith end, so long as there is sin. 

Even in our natural theology, sin being given, pain is abso- 
lutely necessary in order to prove the benevolence of God. 
So that the problem and the answer might be stated thus : 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 337 

Given, the fact of sin, how will you demonstrate that God 
is a good being ? Answer : Only by proving that God 
punishes sin. In this view, the actual degree of misery 
with which earth is rilled, so far from being a difficulty in 
God's government, goes to establish it as God's. A male- 
volent being would have let men sin, without making them 
miserable ; therefore, God could not be proved benevolent, 
unless, in a world of sin, there were the ingredient of 
misery. 

But the arrangement in this world is imperfect, even to 
a pagan mind, and leaves the system open to doubt as to 
God's justice, because sin is so often without punishment, 
and the wicked escape. But if they escape here only to meet 
a perfect retribution hereafter, the doubt is removed. Here, 
then, in this world, we see only the seeds, the roots, the im- 
perfect development of a system, which has its perfection in 
the eternal world. Such is the inevitable argument from our 
natural theology. A mind like Bishop Butler's, not with- 
held, as Foster's was, by permitted doubts as to the Divine 
goodness, from pressing the argument to its logical conclu- 
sion, finds in the eternal world the completion of the sys- 
tem, which is but begun in this. Then th«re comes in 
revelation, to bring the prophecy of our natural theology to 
an absolute certainty, detailing beforehand the perfect pro- 
visions of the Divine government, and showing that the 
partial flashes of justice in this world are but the restraint 
of the Divine indignation, under a system of mercy through 
the death of the Son of God ; so that while there are 
intimations enough of retributive justice to warn men of 
what is to come, if they do not avail themselves of that 
mercy ; there is restraint enough of retributive justice to 
constitute a perfect probation, and leave unembarrassed 
the entire free agency of man. There is retribution enough 
to show that God can and will punish sin ; retribution so 
little, as to show that what he does not do here, he will 
do hereafter. 

15 



338 LIFTS AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

In such a system, the very provisions of mercy are 
manifestly an overwhelming proof that there can be mercy 
in no other way. The provisions of mercy , if rejected, 
return into sanctions of the law, and are the greatest as- 
surances of an endless retribution. Just thus is the argu- 
ment conducted in the Scriptures. And it must be a most 
singular perversity of mind, that, accepting humbly of those 
provisions for itself, as the only possible way of salvation, 
at the same time condemns the goodness of God in not 
saving without those provisions, the persons who reject 
them. It is turning the whole foundations of argument 
upside down, and putting things in the very reverse order 
from that which they occupy in the Scriptures. It is this 
reverse order w T hich Mr. Foster takes. Given, justification 
by faith alone ; to save that part of the world which con- 
tinues rebellious, without faith. Or, in other words, given, 
the atonement for believers ; to save unbelievers in spite 
of it. 

There is no shadow of such a problem presented for solu- 
tion in the Word of God. The question is not even 
mooted of the possibility of such salvation. If there be 
any form of question about it, it is presented in such a 
shape, as to constitute a new and more impregnable variety 
in the argument of retribution ; not, how can they be 
saved? but, how can they escape, who neglect so great 
salvation ? Given by God's mercy, the atonement ; what 
must become of those who reject it ? That is the solemn 
path, into which our inquisitive thoughts are turned in the 
Scripture. 

There is a marked contradiction between Mr. Foster's 
line of reasoning on this subject, and his practical solemnity 
and power in the enforcement of repentance. Take, for 
example, those admirable letters written to assist a soul on 
the verge of the eternal world in its preparation for the 
change from this world to that. He never glances at a 
possibility of there being safety in the eternal world, with- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 339 

out a previous reliance upon Christ in this. His whole ar- 
gument, in all the solemnity which Foster, of all men, pos- 
sessed a surpassing ability to throw around it, so that it 
seems as a dark cloud corning to brood over the spirit with 
mutterings of thunder, is constructed here and elsewhere 
on the impossibility of blessedness in heaven without re- 
generation by Divine grace ; the impossibility of that grace, 
except on a personal application to, and reliance upon, the 
Divine Mediator ; the impossibility of guilt being taken 
away but by relying wholly on the Saviour of the world; 
the impossibility of pardon, without seeking pardon through 
his blood. To all this he adds the inveteracy and profound- 
ness of human depravity, the utterly perverted state of 
every heart. " It is here" says he, speaking to a dear 
and most amiable young friend, " that we need pardoning 
mercy to remove the guilt, and the operations of the Divine 
Spirit to transform our nature and reverse its tendencies. 
It is thus alone that we can be made fit for the community 
and felicity of heaven." And to all this he is wont to add 
the emphatic pressure of the danger of delay, lest the op- 
portunity be passed by, and the immortal spirit be " driven 
away in its wickedness," unprepared to meet its Judge. 

What is there behind all this ? What does it indicate ? 
A deep, unfathomable conviction of the danger of eternal 
retribution, a conviction which sinks Foster's sentences 
into the conscience as with the pen of a diamond ; a con- 
viction which goes beforehand with the reader, and prepares 
the mind to receive the impression from Foster's solemnity 
of appeal, stamped as with the weight of a mountain. The 
conviction in Foster's mind was indeed habitually wrestling 
with doubt ; but whenever he addressed himself to the work 
of warning an immortal being, the instinctive energy of the 
conviction, quickened by anxiety for another, seemed to 
thrust the doubt down, and the tide of solemn thought 
pressed unimpeded onward. Such declarations of Foster's 
belief as this, that it is only by the Scriptural view of the 



340 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

Mediator that " all our guilt can be removed from the soul, 
and dissevered from its destiny in the life to corue" indi- 
cate a reef of thought on this subject, over which the anxi- 
eties of his mind were thundering incessantly. The student 
in theology, or young minister to whom he addressed a let- 
ter so palpably inconsistent with the practical tenor of his 
writings, might have answered him with the question, 
What mean the breakers on that reef? What is that 
destiny in the life to come, from which guilt cannot be 
dissevered ? 

And he may be answered now, in Foster's own language, 
taken from his earlier work on the Importance of Religion, 
with a positive answer in the shape of a returning question: 
"The question comes to you, whether you can deliberately 
judge it better to carry forward a corrupt nature, uncor- 
rected, untransformed, unreclaimed to God, into the future 
state, where it must be miserable, than to undergo what- 
ever severity is indispensable in the process of true religion, 
which would prepare you for a happy eternity. Reflect 
that you are every day practically answering the question. 
Can it be that you are answering it in the affirmative ? Do 
I really see before me the rational being who in effect avows : 
— I cannot, will not, submit to such a discipline, though in 
refusing it and resisting it, I renounce an infinite and eternal 
good, and consign myself to perdition ?" 

He may be answered with another sentence, taken from 
the same powerful work of Mr. Foster, and applied by Fos- 
ter himself, as the final answer to those who question the 
truth of that " appalling estimate of future ruin," presented 
by the evangelical religious doctrine : — an answer which 
the writer himself would have done well to put up in char- 
acters of fire over his own entrance to the consideration of 
the subject : — " We have only to reply, that, as he has not 
yet seen the world of retribution, he is to take his estimate 

OF ITS AWARDS FROM THE DECLARATION OF HlM, WHO KNOWS 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 341 

WHAT THEY ARE, AND THAT IT IS AT HIS PERIL HE ASSUMES TO 
ENTERTAIN ANY OTHER." 

Here we rest. This single sentence contains a wisdom 
that quite v sets aside Mr. Foster's whole letter on the sub- 
ject of Divine Penalty. God only knows the retributions 
of eternity, and it is at our peril that we assume to enter- 
tain any other estimate of them, than that which his words 
distinctly reveal. 

We cannot better close our notices of this subject, and 
of these intensely interesting volumes, than by quoting 
two of the remarks in Mr. Foster's Journal, numbered 321 
and 323. 

"We aTe, as to the grand system and series of God's government, like a 
man who, confined in a dark room, should observe through a chink in the 
wall, some large animal pacing by: — he sees but an extremely small strip of 
the animal at once as it passes by, and is utterly unable to form an idea of 
the size, proportions, or shape of it." 

"How dangerous to defer those momentous reformations which conscience 
is solemnly preaching to the heart. If they are neglected, the difficulty and 
indisposition are increasing ever}' month. The mind is receding, degree after 
degree, from the warm and hopeful zone, till at last it will enter the arctic 
circle, and become fixed in relentless and eternal ice." 

Out of the first three hundred articles in this Journal, 
prepared with great care by Mr. Foster's own hand, only 
twenty-eight have been published ; of the others, likewise, 
many are omitted. We cannot conceive the reason for this 
procedure. It would seem proper to have published the 
whole of the Journal ; it will be strange indeed, if it be not 
demanded by the earnest desire to know all that can be 
known of the mental and spiritual processes of so remark- 
able a mind. Appended to these volumes are some deeply 
interesting notices of Mr. Foster, as a preacher and com- 
panion, by John Sheppard, author of Thoughts on Devotion, 
and other productions. 

We have spoken of that delightful trait in Mr. Foster's 
noble nature, — his childlike ingenuousness. There was in 
him a striking combination of simplicity of purpose, inde- 



342 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

pendence, originality, and fearlessness of human opinion. 
Now if he had possessed, along with these qualities, a greater 
degree of wisdom in practical judgment, we believe we 
should have seen in the memorials of his biography more of 
positive faith, and less of the workings of anxious disquiet- 
ing, and sometimes agonizing doubt. There are seasons of 
doubt and darkness in Christian experience, which man 
should keep from man, and carry only to God. He should 
keep them, not because he fears the tribunal of human 
opinion, but fears to add what may be the wrongfulness of 
his own state of mind to the sum of error and unbelief in 
the world. He should cease from man, and wait patiently 
upon God for light, because he loves his fellow beings, and 
is unwilling by his own uncertainties, which may spring 
from he knows not how many evil influences, to run the 
hazard of balancing their uncertainty on the wrong side. 
It is no part of a childlike ingenuousness to give utterance 
always to whatever may perplex the soul in its conflicts 
with the powers of darkness. 

The admirable constitution of the mind of Robert Hall 
in reference to this subject has been developed by Mr. Foster 
himself in his own original and forcible style. In that part 
of his remarks on Mr. HalPs character as a preacher, he 
has alluded to the peculiar tendency in some minds to brood 
over the shaded frontier of awful darkness on the borders of 
our field of knowledge. " There are certain mysterious 
phenomena," says he, " in the moral economy of our world, 
which compel, and will not release, the attention of a 
thoughtful mind, especially if of a gloomy constitutional 
tendency. Wherever it turns, it still encounters their por- 
tentous aspect ; often feels arrested and fixed by them as 
under some potent spell ; making an effort, still renewed, 
and still unavailing, to escape from the appalling presence 
of the vision." Mr. Foster is here evidently disclosing 
something of the habit of his own experience. He was 
longing to have the oppression upon his mind alleviated ; 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 343 

and he thought that the strenuous deliberate exertion of a 
power of thought like Mr. Hall's, after he had been so deeply 
conversant with important and difficult speculations, might 
perhaps have contributed something towards such an allevia- 
tion. But even Mr. Hall could have effected nothing of 
this nature for a mind which would not exercise a childlike 
faith. Carry our knowledge up to the last point to which 
the strongest mind ever created could advance it, and there 
is still the same need of faith, — contented, quiet, submissive 
faith. And how is faith ever to be tried, how can it be 
proved that it is the faith of an humble and submissive 
mind, except in the midst, or on the border of great diffi- 
culties ? 

Mr. Foster speaks, almost with a feeling of disappoint- 
ment, of that peculiarity in Mr, Hall's mental character, by 
which he appeared " disinclined to pursue any inquiries be- 
yond the point where substantial evidence fails. He seemed 
content to let it remain a terra incognita, till the hour that 
puts an end to conjecture." We confess we see a deep 
wisdom and beauty in this trait of character. It was 
wrought into Mr. Hall's constitution not by nature only, 
but by the power of grace divine. And the more the soul 
is absorbed with the known realities of our being, and the 
overwhelming importance of what is clearly revealed of our 
destiny in the world to come, the more anxious it will be to 
press that knotvledge, the more unwilling to distract the 
attention from it by the pursuit of doubt and inquisitive 
speculation, and the more content to leave the obscure and 
the mysterious to the hour when we shall see as we are 
seen, and know as we are known. " My efforts," said Mr. 
Foster, in his journal, " to enter into possession of the vast 
world of moral and metaphysical truth, are like those of a 
mouse attempting to gnaw through the door of a granary." 
It was also a curious remark which he made, that " one 
object of life should be to accumulate a great number of 
grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity." In- 



344 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

quisitive wonderer in the presence of mysterious and incom- 
prehensible truth ! Art thou now in a world, where faith 
is no longer needed ? Or do the answers that in the light 
of eternity, the light of Heaven, have burst upon thy re- 
deemed spirit, only render necessary a still higher faith, and 
prepare thee for its undoubting, beatific, everlasting ex- 
ercise ? 



THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

AND THAT OF IMITATION* 



We have happened upon an age, in which there is a 
great resurrection and life of old, dead, exploded errors. 
These errors, in this new life, are beginning to stalk about 
so proud and populous, that in some quarters truth retires 
and is hidden, or is even stricken down in the streets and 
churches. Error puts on the semblance of truth, and re- 
ligion itself, in a form of mere earthly aggrandizement, 
becomes one enormous, despotic, consolidated lie. 

The difference between the religion of experience and 
that of imitation, is a theme which at this crisis is occupy- 
ing many minds ; — nor is this wonderful, for it is all the 
difference between a missionary piety, and a piety of pride, 
intolerance, and self-indulgence. In the introduction of 
our subject, we shall, in few words, designate the two. 

The world is to be saved, if saved at all, by the religion 
of Experience, and not that of Imitation. The religion 
of imitation is that of forms ; the religion of experience is 
that of realities. The religion of imitation is Church- 
ianity ; the religion of experience is Christianity. The 
religion of imitation, except when it oppresses, is that of 
profound quiet and weakness ; the religion of experience 
is that of conflict and power. 

* An Address delivered before the Society of Inquiry on Missions, in 
Amherst College, August, 1843. 

15* 



346 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

Imitation will do for calm times, and gorgeous forms 
and rites, and magnificent cathedrals ; but experience is 
needed in the midst of danger, in dens and caves of the 
earth, or to support the bare simplicity of the gospel. Im- 
itation may be a persecuting religion, experience alone can 
be a suffering one. Imitation goes to books, schools, forms, 
names, institutes ; experience to God. Imitation takes 
Anselm, Bernard, Calvin, Edwards, Brainard, Emmons, 
anything, everything, but God's word. Experience goes 
to the living truth, and drinks into it. Imitation has the 
semblance of experience, but not its essence or its power. 
Imitation takes at second-hand what experience originates. 
Imitation studies systems, and reads the Bible to prove 
them. Experience studies the Bible, and reads human 
systems for illustration. Imitation is not a missionary 
spirit ; experience is. Imitation may fill the world with 
the forms of piety, and with most of its refining influences. 
You may bring men away, id great measure, from their 
vices, and you may refine their manners, and yet bring 
them no nearer to Christ. And here I am constrained to 
remark, that one of our greatest dangers in the missionary 
enterprise lies in the fact, that so much, in reality, may be 
done without the religion of experience, the co-operation of 
the Holy Spirit. The world might be filled with a nominal 
Christianity, yea, an evangelical Christianity, and the 
Spirit of God have very little to do with it. There might 
be all the ameliorating influences of Christianity, except 
that of real conversion, following in the train of our efforts 
in every part of the world, and even the instrumentality of 
a prayerless church might be sufficient for such an evan- 
gelization. The dome of some gorgeous and heartless 
establishment, with all its decency and refinement, might 
be let down to cover every form of idolatry and heathenism, 
and to bring all tribes and communities of the gentile world 
in obedience to its rubrics and beneath its power. But 
what then would be gained ? Why, this spiritual quack- 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 



347 



ery on a vast scale, this healing of the world's hurts 
slightly, would only put off to a more distant period the 
real prevalence of Christ's kingdom, and render a thousand 
times more difficult the real redemption of mankind from 
sin. 

Now, it is to be feared that the religious characteristic 
of this age, compared with some other ages, is that of im- 
itation rather than experience. This, in some respects, is 
the natural course of things. It is so, intellectually. An 
age of eminently original genius is ordinarily succeeded by 
an imitative age ; or, if not imitative, the contrast between 
the splendor of genius, and the poverty of mere talent, 
makes it appear such. For example, the Elizabethian age 
in England, the age of Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, 
was an age of originality and power ; the age of Queen 
Anne afterwards was an age of comparative imitation and 
weakness. These two ages, or something near them, may 
also be taken as corresponding examples of the religion of 
experience and that of imitation. The presence and 
agency of God's Spirit, and the power of God's Word, 
marked the one ; that of human morality, speculation, and 
understanding, the other. Bunyan and Baxter, and we 
may add Leighton, may stand to personify the one ; Til- 
lotson and Locke may be the interpreters of the other. 
The seventeenth century, both in literature and religion, 
may, in a general comparison with our century, be said to 
stand in the contrast of an age of experience with an age 
of imitation. 

For this inferiority of one age to another, there may be 
natural inevitable causes in respect to the development of 
mind and genius, but in religious things we are sure it 
ought not to be so. An age of religious imitation marks a 
period of departure from God ; this is undeniable. An 
age cannot be destitute of deep and original religious expe- 
rience, if it enjoy the word of God, and the ordinances of 
religion, without a great falling off from duty, and a great 



348 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

betrayal of its own interests. Yet it is to be feared, all 
things taken together, that the religion of this age is a 
religion of imitation rather than experience ; a religion, the 
character of which, on the whole, is superficiality rather 
than profound originality and power. Into this prevailing 
habitude every individual new-comer is baptized ; every 
religionist grows up in this atmosphere ; forms his habits, 
active and passive, meditative and operative, inward and 
external, beneath it. The form of piety in the New Tes- 
tament is not the object of general vision, but the form of 
piety in the Church ; and through this medium the charac- 
teristics of the gospel are seen as through an obscuring 
haze, and not in their own clear, definite, celestial shape. 
It is as if we should contemplate the heavens, and study 
astronomy, in the reflection thrown into the bosom of a 
mountain lake. Indeed, if the lake be clear and pellucid, 
seen in a still night, you may read the heavens therein ; 
but if the wind ruffle its surface ever so little, or if any 
impurity obscure the crystal clearness of its waters, you 
can never have the image of truth. The stars will seem 
double and dim, the planets will twinkle and lose their 
lustre, and you would not give much for the best astronom- 
ical system that ages of investigation could produce from 
such a study. So we contemplate the forms of religion, 
not in their native brightness, but in the obscurity of men's 
lives, in a dim, turbid reflection, in the troubled waters of a 
worldly piety. And this is just the error against which 
the Apostle warns us by the example of those, who, 
" measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing 
themselves among themselves, are not wise." However 
pure may be the medium, if we have come into the habit 
of looking at the piety of the gospel through it, or rather at 
the reflection of the gospel iu it, we soon lose the sense of 
its native power and glory. 

Now all this produces a puny, sickly, stunted, dwarf- 
like, superstitious piety, instead of the free, noble, healthful, 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 349 

manly growth of the Scriptures. Instead of a piety that 
mounts up on wings as eagles, those wings are clipped, and 
the bird that should have soared even above the lightnings 
of the tempest into the pure empyrean, beats and soils its 
plumes against the bars of its prison. We know not if 
this age will ever awake to a sense of its departure from 
God, and of the degraded and imprisoned state of its piety; 
but we are perfectly sure that this soiled, craven, doubting, 
plodding, care-worn, self-seeking form, in which religion 
goes about in our churches, is not the open, noble, trusting, 
singing, independent, angelic, self-forgetting creature of the 
Scriptures. " These things," said our blessed Saviour to 
his disciples, " have I spoken unto you, that my joy might 
remain in you, and that your joy might be full." We 
stand in amazement before the open door of heaven revealed 
in these words by the Saviour to his people. There is a 
glory and a power, a beauty and a depth of blessedness in 
them, that we never see realized. And yet this is but one 
description of the piety of the New Testament ; this is the 
angelic form of that religion which the Apostles believed 
was to fill the world. This experience of Christ's own joy 
is the legitimate product of Christ's own word in its native 
power and glory. And truly, if ail believers possessed this 
experience, and lived by it and upon it, the radiancy of 
such piety would fill the world. This, we say, is the 
power of God's word ; this is its essential nature. If we 
do but note its elements in the most careless manner, we 
shall find this to be the case. They are such, that no man 
can bring his soul under the power of them, and not expe- 
rience this disenthralment and transfiguration of his being. 
Never did our Saviour mean that his joy should remain in 
his disciples in any other way, than by the words which 
he spake unto them, and would still speak, remaining in 
them. And this, indeed, is what he said : " if ye abide in 
me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, 
and it shall be done unto you." And this was to be the 



350 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

office of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to " teach you all 
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatso- 
ever I have said unto you." We say again, this is the 
power of God's word, and this is the religion of experience; 
but it is not the power of God's word with a soul which is 
not kept under it. It is the power of God's word, when 
its living truths are believed and realized ; and these truths 
are of such a nature, that it is not possible it should be 
otherwise. 

I. Now, in dwelling upon some of the causes which have 
tended to make the piety of this age an imitative piety, 
rather than a piety of experience and originality ; and 
therefore a self-indulgent, rather than a missionary piety; 
we shall begin with the mention of this great evil, namely, 
the want of a vivid, abiding perception of, and a meditative 
pondering upon, the individual truths of the Scriptures. It 
is not the habit of this age to live in and upon God's word ; 
though at the same time this age knows more about the 
word of God, than any preceding age. Hence results in- 
ward weakness, even amidst great apparent knowledge. 
Hence, although the form may be perfect, the Spirit in- 
habits it not. Hence an inertness, like that which ensues 
on the breaking or partial interruption of a galvanic chain ; 
a paralysis, like that of the limbs, when there happens a 
disconnection between the spine and the extremities. What 
we need is a new baptism from heaven in the faith which 
appreciates the power of divine truth, and sees and feels its 
reality. If we had this faith, we should be very different 
creatures. Any one of the great truths revealed in God's 
word, distinctly seen, and fully believed and appreciated, 
would change the whole character. It would possess the 
mind and enlist all the faculties. It would lift up the soul 
from the atmosphere of earth, to the atmosphere of heaven. 
Baptized into its power as a spiritual element, it would 
make us superior alike to the fear of man, and the allure- 
ments of the world ; insensible to fatigue, and ready for 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 351 

perpetual effort. It would be received into our spiritual 
existence, a powerful, practical life, and not a mere barren 
speculation. 

A belief of the truth that hundreds of millions of our 
fellow-beings are, generation after generation, sinking into 
endless ruin ; and that God has placed in our hands the 
means of their salvation ; an appreciation of this truth, with 
a spiritual vividness and power at all like that which dwelt 
in the soul of the apostles, would quite arrest and enchain 
the mind beneath its influence, so that a man would act 
with so much exhaustless energy for the redemption of his 
fellow-beings that the world would well nigh deem him 
mad. And such madness would be true wisdom. Just 
so, a view of the glory of Christ, the holiness of God, the 
nature of sin, the shortness of time, the nearness of eternity, 
would in like manner govern and stamp the character, and 
make a man live like a superior being. These are the ele- 
ments of faith, of prayer, of love, of solemnity, of power. 
And it is the blessed nature of these principles, their divine 
and indissoluble harmony and oneness, that a profound 
meditation upon any one, and a complete mastery of the 
mind by it, instead of disturbing the mind's balance, or 
diminishing its impression of the power and majesty of the 
others, does but set the soul in the centre, like an angel in 
the sun, and prepares it the better for the influence of the 
whole circle of divine truths. Men whose benevolence is 
confined to one thing, and who give to that an absorbing 
predominance, are sometimes designated as men of one 
idea. It were to be wished that the world were full of 
Christians with one idea. The cross of Christ is an idea. 
It is the idea which possessed and governed the lives of the 
Apostles. It is the idea that ought to rule the world. When 
an earthly idea masters the mind, to the exclusion of every 
other, it produces insanity. In regard to heavenly things, 
such madness is wise. Oh that we were all thus mad ! 
When one of the elementary truths of the gospel thus mas- 



352 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

ters the mind, it quite transfigures it with power and glory. 
It gives it the wings of a seraph, the freedom and swiftness 
of a celestial nature. It darkens this world ; but it is only 
because it lets in heaven upon the soul, and shows, along 
with the value of the soul, the true insignificance of this 
world and its vanities. 

Now, it seems quite manifest that the ordinary measure 
of religion in this age fails to put the soul under this expe- 
rience of the power of God's word, this burning, life-giving 
experience. We repeat it, that we need, a new baptism 
from heaven, such personal, experimental knowledge of the 
irresistible energy and efficacy of divine truth, and such 
inward love and joy in its possession, as shall make us feel 
that this is the only weapon, the only instrumentality we 
need, for that it will work in the whole world as effectually 
as it does in ourselves. It would make a new Reformation, 
should there be such a baptism. In this view, we hail the 
appearance of such works as have come to us of late from 
among the mountains of Switzerland, the proper place for 
the birth and reverberation of such a voice, the voice as of 
a kingly spirit throned among the hills, — the work of Gaus- 
sen, on the Inspiration of God's word, and that noble work 
of D'Aubigne, on the History of the Reformation. And 
sure we are, that if, in the spirit of reliance on God's word, 
and with the intensity of a living experience of its individ- 
ual truths, we should go forth as Luther ; if the Christian 
church should do this, then would that system of Antichrist, 
which has lived by the hiding, corruption, ignorance and 
inexperience of God's word, die. The spirit of Romanism 
would die also, whatever shape of formalism it may inhabit. 
The new forms of Romanism would perish almost as soon 
as they should be born. The idolatry of forms could no 
more stand against the fire of the Spirit of God's Word, 
than the sere leaves and withered branches of the woods, in 
autumn, could stand before a forest conflagration. 

It cannot be denied that we have been using the word of 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 353 

God rather as an external lamp, thai? an inward foun- 
tain ; and hence so much knowledge of duty, but so little 
love and performance. We were very much struck with 
this remark, in that book on inspiration, to which we have 
referred ; for there is nothing more certain, than that other 
men's experience at second hand, in divine things, is life- 
less. It is not what David Brainard or Jonathan Edwards 
felt, that can constitute my power, but what the Spirit of 
God teaches me, and makes me feel. Assuredly this is 
the grand reason why so much of the piety of this age 
is ineffectual. There are trees which remain standing 
in the midst of the forest, even after they are inwardly 
and completely rotten, solely by the strength and thickness 
of their bark ; and just so a strong envelop of forms, with 
the " odor of sanctity" gathered from some great names, 
may keep the Christian and the church in the position of 
life, long after the spirit of life has almost utterly departed. 
But no Christian can live and be efficient by leaning on 
anything external for support. 

To be powerful in religion, a Christian must be, in a 
most important sense, a self-made man ; his acquisitions 
must be original ; he can no more gird himself w r ith the 
freshness and power of a living piety at second-hand, 
than a man could wield the miraculous energy of Paul 
or Peter, by looking at its exercise. He must have a 
personal baptism from God's word. Its living truths, in 
their simplicity and burning power, have been darkened 
by our speculations ; and even in correct feeling we are 
deep in the empty channels of Christian experience worn 
by others, like men travelling in the dry bed of a mountain 
torrent, instead of being rapt onward, as in a burning 
chariot, on the path, in which, led and sustained by the 
Spirit of God, it might seem as if no being ever travelled 
before us. 

And is the power of God's word never to be thus real- 
ized? Is there never an age coming, in which the glory 



354 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

of Christ's religion shall be demonstrated? Shall this re- 
proach never be lifted from the Scriptures, that they boast 
a power, which the world has never seen exerted ? Is the 
earth coming into its millennium, and is this imperfect, 
crude, lamenting, uninviting, world- conforming piety, or 
this superstitious, domineering, intolerant piety of forms, 
to be all the realization of righteousness on earth ? Are 
we willing, if we will be honest, to have the piety of a re- 
generated world moulded by the type of our piety ? No ! 
we will not believe that all the rapturous descriptions of 
the Bible are thus to end in smoke ; we will not subscribe 
to the idea that such an imperfect Christianity is all that 
we can expect to spread, or to be spread through the world, 
or that we must be satisfied never to have a race, that 
shall rise to the stature of full-grown men in Christ Jesus. 
True it is, that the world has never yet seen such a race, 
or but for a little. True it is, that this glory lost its lustre 
in the obscurity of men's passions, very soon after the 
death of Christ and his apostles, and that generation after 
generation has gone by, and up to this time no race has 
fully risen to the apostolic standard. Nevertheless, we may 
remark that no age was ever more favorably placed for thus 
rising, than ours. It is one of the greatest glories of the 
missionary enterprise, that it promises to transfigure our 
piety, to save it from corruption, and to raise it to the im- 
age of the same mind which was in Christ Jesus. It may 
prove the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof, if 
God's people will but throw themselves into it. 

II. The second cause which we shall urge for the im- 
itative cast of the piety of this age, is the prevalence of 
low and indistinct views of Divine inspiration. These, 
so far as they prevail, are like a tetter in the blood, or a 
very tabes dor talis for the corruption and weakening of the 
vitality of our piety. The Apostle commends those who 
receive the gospel as being indeed the very word of God, 
and not as the word of men. Now there are many who, 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 355 

professing to receive it as a revelation from God, do never- 
theless receive it as the word of men. The idea of the 
Rationalists and the Unitarians is indeed too prevalent, 
that for us it is not the revelation direct from God, but 
only the record of that revelation. Now we had almost 
said that we would as soon trust in the Koran, as in such 
a book. Our religion is built upon the sand, if its support 
be merely the human record of a divine revelation. We 
cannot take the word of God at second-hand, any more 
than, as Christians, we can adopt our piety from others' ex- 
perience. It is, as we have already intimated, the blessed- 
ness of our religion, that in everything we are brought di- 
rectly to God. And so, as in order to be powerful in religion 
the Christian must be perfectly original in his spiritual ac- 
quisitions, receiving them for himself directly from the Spirit 
of God, he must likewise feed upon the very words of God, 
and feel that he is doing so. It is no record of a revela- 
tion that can satisfy him, or energize his sou], but the reve- 
lation itself; it is no mere human description of the word 
of God by Isaiah or Paul, but the word of God itself, ad- 
dressed to you and me as plainly, as definitely, as verbally, 
as to Isaiah or Paul. If a man abandons this ground, he 
abandons the citadel of his piety. He is no longer original, 
but imitative, and at second-hand in everything. In divine 
things, the very nerves of his soul will be cut in sunder ; 
and though he may have a religion that will comport well 
with peaceable and idle times and ceremonies, yet in stormy 
times, in convulsions about faith, in conference with infi- 
dels, and in personal conflicts with Apollyon, he will find 
himself weak, irresolute, and defenceless, with neither fixed 
positions, nor the means of sustaining them. 

It is one pestilent consequence of low views of inspira- 
tion, that philosophy, falsely so called, is let in to intermed- 
dle with the Scriptures. A man who cannot stand upon 
the Bible, as in every part the very word of God, will not 
and cannot have that deep, abiding faith, which is superior 



356 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

to the vicissitudes of merely human speculations. His 
bark will be driven about even in religious things, by the 
side winds of philosophy and science. He will be ready 
to submit a certain science to an uncertain ; he will alter 
his views of divine revelation in accordance with the latest 
and most approved geological theory ; and his views of 
divine doctrine will be modified by or dependent upon meta- 
physical reasonings. For a missionary piety, the most un- 
qualified, unhesitating reliance on the word of God, is 
absolutely essential. In this the Reformers were greatly 
superior to us. They came out of a church which was all 
error, and they went direct to Christ and his truth, with a 
relish that made them drink deep into it. We hesitate not 
to say that their views of inspiration were higher than ours. 
They used the Scriptures inwardly ; they took the medi- 
cine into the soul, to be healed by it, where we take it into 
the laboratory to analyze its ingredients, and test its purity. 
They laid it away in the heart ; we put it into crucibles. 
Their characteristics were those of experience and wisdom ; 
ours are those of knowledge and imitation. 

It must be regarded as a special providence of God,* that 
amidst all the despotism of Roman Catholic error, amidst 
all the concealment and ignorance of the Scriptures, the 
belief of mankind in their inspiration was preserved from 
being undermined by such a tide of Neology as hath since 
swept over the world, leaving the mud and spawn of infi- 
delity so universal, that it will take time even to cleanse 
it from our most sacred things and recesses. Had that 
tide come before the birth of Luther, he would have had but 
very little power over men's minds, in appealing to the 
word of God. If the Papacy had added to all its other 
refuges of lies, not merely the withdrawal of the word of 
God from common perusal, but the denial of its infalli- 
bility, the instruction of the people in a rationalistic view 
of its inspiration, a thousand Luthers might have appealed 
to it in vain. And in our day, if men go forth to the work 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 357 

of the world's conversion with low and loose views of the 
inspiration of the Scriptures, they will be shorn of their 
power. A man whose theory of a divine inspiration admits 
the possibility of error, the possibility that some passages 
may be less the word of God than others, and that some 
other passages may not be the word of God at all, has no 
firm ground to stand upon. " The prophet that hath a 
dream, let him tell a dream ; but he that hath my word, 
let him speak my word faithfully. What has the chaff to 
do with the wheat ? saith the Lord. Is not my word like 
as a fire, saith the Lord ; and like a hammer, that breaketh 
the rock in pieces ?" 

III. The third cause, which we shall allege for the imi- 
tative state of our piety, is a practical relinquishment of 
the principle that the Bible is the only and sufficient rule 
of faith and practice. There is an evil of this nature in 
our age, double. There is one party in religion making 
the church a mediator between God's word and the soul. 
Instead of Christ's words, " I am the vine ye are the 
branches ; abide in me, and let my words abide in you ;" 
their language is, " The church is the vine ; abide in the 
church, and let the words and ordinances of the church 
abide in you." This produces a religion of dependence on 
the church, and imitative on that side. It is imitation of 
the church, obedience to ceremony and tradition, the sacri- 
fice of personal independence, not for the sake of principle 
but form ; it is humility for the sake of pride, humility 
not in the shape of gentleness and love to those beneath us, 
but of the worship of power, authority, and grandeur above 
us. This is the humility which the forms of a monarchy 
tend to generate, humility upwards, not downwards ; the 
minding of high things, not the condescending to men of 
low estate. This is the humility of Popery, and of that 
form of Popery, which exists as Puseyism or High Church- 
ism. It is humility to all above, but pride and arrogance 
to all beneath. It is self-worship disguised, this professed 



358 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

absorption into the church ; it is self-enlarged, and expanded 
over a sect; "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the 
Lord, the temple of the Lord, are we." It is arrogance and 
pride indulged, and erected into a virtue. This is one of 
the greatest triumphs of error and sin, when it can be en- 
shrined into a form of duty. 

On the other side it is not so bad, but the same imitative 
tendency prevails. Men, for a rule of practice, if not of 
faith, look not so much to God's word as to men. The 
garb of piety is worn, which is conformable to good usage. 
Christian society is the mirror, in which men dress and 
undress their souls for God. In this case it is the grega- 
rious tendency of human nature, the same principle that 
leads a flock of sheep straight over a stone wall on one 
another's heels into green pastures. Unfortunately in this 
case it does not lead into green pasture, but away from it. 
Society, society, says Madame de Stael, how it makes the 
heart hard and the mind frivolous ! how it leads us to live 
for what men will say of us! This is a great evil, this 
living for what men will say of us, instead of what God 
has said for us ; but it is greater in the church than in 
the world. It is surprising how powerfully men will si- 
lently sustain one another in practical error, and almost 
paralyze their own consciences and the word of God in so 
doing. "Although," says Lord Bacon, "our persons live 
in the view of heaven, yet our spirits are included in the 
caves of our own complexions and customs, which minister 
unto us infinite errors and vain opinions, if they be not 
recalled to examination." 

IV. A fourth cause which we shall mention, though 
perhaps more strictly it is part of the third, is the habit of 
deference to human authority, and the study of theology 
by systems and names, instead of the Scriptures. Hence 
an inquisitorial tendency, and the putting of books of 
human origin as standards of opinion. One man makes a 
Procrustes' bed out of Locke on the Human Understand- 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 359 

ing; another out of Edwards on the Will. We think 
this would not be the case, if we lived more upon God's 
word. Nothing tends so much to produce a manly inde- 
pendence and a genuine gospel liberty of thought and feel- 
ing as a simple reliance upon God's word, and an uncon- 
ditional submission to it. This habit of deference to 
human authority grew up in the pastures of Popery and 
Paganism. At one time men went mad with worship of 
Aristotle ; then again of Plato ; then of Duns Scotus and 
Thomas Aquinas ; and neglect of God's word personally 
and individually, has permitted the church of Christ in 
every age to have her Aristotles and Platos, her Dunses, 
and Aquinases. We cannot but behold a proof of this ten- 
dency, this love of borrowed light, and this habitual reli- 
ance upon other things, rather than the word of God, even 
in our own republication of the admirable tomes of divinity 
and Christian experience in the seventeenth century. The 
movement, undoubtedly, is ominous of good, and not of 
evil; and it indicates the beginning of a better relish, as 
well as the poverty of our own stores. But we are also in 
danger, while pursuing the streams, of being led away 
from the fountain, and of omitting the same enthusiastic 
love and study of the word of God experimentally, which 
knit up into so great stature the giants of a past theological 
age. We are very, very far from undervaluing the labors 
of learned men, or the treasures of thought and experience 
digged out of the mines of God's word by their holy and 
enthusiastic industry. But we do say, that if w r e neglect 
the same labors, because great men of a past age entered 
into them, and because, therefore, we may do without 
them ; if we take their treasures, and the treasures which 
they spread before their own age, to use, in our admiration, 
instead of digging those mines ourselves anew, for our own 
age, and for our own souls, then farewell to all originality 
and power ; then will our religion continue to be a religion 
of imitation instead of experience. If this is to be the 



360 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

result, it were better that every tome of divinity, and every 
record of Christian experience, were burned as soon as it 
should see the light. In this view we admire the nobleness 
of Luther, when the pope's bull of excommunication was 
published, and they began to burn the Reformer's books. 
" Let them destroy my works," said he ; " I desire nothing 
better ; for all I wanted was to lead Christians to the 
Bible, that they might afterwards throw away my writings. 
Great God ! if we haS but a right understanding of the 
Holy Scriptures, what need would there be of my books ?" 
O how noble is this ! How characteristic of a soul that 
had drunk deep for its own self into the Bible, and would 
have every other soul go and plunge into the same fountain 
of blessedness, and drink, and continue to drink, there and 
there only. We love Luther for this noble declaration. 
And sure we are that his works, fresh and powerful as they 
are, and the works of every other uninspired man, though 
you collect the whole circle of possible mental develop- 
ments, between the genius of Baxter and that of Leighton, 
when compared with God's word, are but as winking tapers 
in the light of a noonday sun. And what should we think 
of the man who, if a set of gas-lights were hung up to burn 
in the streets at noonday, should go about endeavoring to 
walk by their light, or perpetually calling upon you to 
admire their glory, while he scarcely seems aware that the 
sun above him, like the very face of God, is shining with 
such splendor, as almost to put out those pale and ineffect- 
ual fires ? 

This being the case, on a comparison even of the richly 
spiritual divines of the seventeenth century with inspiration, 
how much more with reference to those writers called the 
Christian Fathers, comprehending so wide and chaotic a 
gathering of spoils and opinions in what Milton calls the 
drag-net of antiquity. It would be difficult to depict the 
ineffable absurdity of sending back the Christians of this 
generation into the twilight of Romish superstition and 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 361 

philosophy, to interpret Scripture by tradition from the 
Fathers. Often as we see this attempted exaltation of the 
early doctors of the church into the place of supremacy over 
our own faith and opinion as founded on the Scriptures, we 
think of Taylor's powerful and beautiful delineation of the 
contrast between those doctors after the time of Christ, and 
the Jewish prophets before him. " It must be acknowledged 
that the writers of the ancient dispensation were such as 
those should be, who were looking onward towards the 
bright day of gospel splendor ; while the early Christian 
doctors were just such as one might well expect to find 
those, who were looking onward toward that deep night of 
superstition, which covered Europe during the middle ages. 
The dawn is seen to be gleaming upon the foreheads of the 
one class of writers, while- a sullen gloom overshadows the 
brows of the other." 

If these remarks apply with any justice to books of prac- 
tical divinity, much more do they to systems and books of 
theoretical speculation. For the student to let these pre- 
vent him from drinking in his theology originally and for 
himself at God's word, or to drink at these first, and form 
his taste there, and mould his opinions, and then, under the 
influence of that taste, and by the light of those opinions, to 
go to the Bible, and study it more or less under a cloud of 
prejudice, or if not under prejudice, at least in the attitude 
of a systematic theologian, rather than as a child, a learner, 
a former of his own system from divine truth by the Spirit 
of God, is to deprive his soul of the blessed elements of 
freshness and original power ; it is to keep him from ever 
knowing the power of God's word ; it is to make his reli- 
gion the religion of imitation, and not that of experience. 

We shall here strengthen our positions by some profound 
remarks of Lord Bacon. " As for perfection or complete- 
ness in divinity," says he, "it is not to be sought; which 
makes this course of artificial divinity the more suspect 
For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art, will make 

16 



362 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

it round and uniform : but in divinity many things must 
be left abrupt, and concluded with this : O the depth of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God ! how incomprehensible are 
his judgments, and his ways past finding out I So, again y 
the Apostle saith y Ex parte scimus : and to have the form 
of a total, when there is but matter for a part, cannot be 
without supplies by supposition and presumption. And 
therefore I conclude, that the true use of these terms and 
methods hath place in institutions or introductions prepara- 
tory unto knowledge ; but in them, or by deducement from 
them, to handle the main body and substance of a knowl- 
edge, is in all sciences prejudicial, and in divinity danger- 
ous." Lord Bacon likewise speaks of " the over early and 
peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods ; 
from which time commonly sciences receive small or no 
augmentation. But as young men, when they knit and 
shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a farther stature ; so 
knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is 
in growth ; but when it once is comprehended in exact 
methods, it may, perchance, be farther polished and illus- 
trated, and accommodated for use and practice ; but it in- 
creaseth no more in bulk and substance." 

The truth is, that no real advance can be made in theol- 
ogy, except by experience. It implies two things : knowl- 
edge of self, and knowledge of God ; and in truth, as self 
can be known only by knowing God, all advance in theol- 
ogy, either man- ward or God- ward, depends upon divine 
grace. There is a passage in Zuingle's experience of great 
importance on this point. " Philosophy and theology," said 
he, " were constantly raising difficulties in my mind. At 
length I was brought to say we must leave these things, 
and endeavor to enter into God's thoughts in his own word. 
I applied myself in earnest prayer to the Lord, to give me 
his light ; and though I read nothing but Scripture, its 
sense became clearer to me than if I had studied many 
commentators." " I study the doctors," said Zuingle, 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 363 

"just as you ask a friend How do you understand this?" 
So, indeed, to neglect other writers, as if we could advance 
as well without them, would be pride and presumption ; 
but there is a great difference in the mode of consulting 
them. A man, for example, on reading Edwards's history 
of Redemption, cannot fail to make a great advance, by 
the aid of such comprehensive views, such a holy general- 
ization of particulars, by a mind distinguished for this rare 
faculty. But this is not a book of systematic theology ; 
and such a course of reading, and reading after and with 
a personal study of God's word, is very different from the 
consultation of systems and systematic writers, who, in 
the very fact of striving after the completeness of their 
system, may prove unsuitable teachers. " By making 
authors dictators," says Lord Bacon, " that their words 
should stand, and not consuls to give advice, the damage 
is infinite that sciences have received thereby, as the prin- 
ciple cause that hath kept them low, at a stay, without 
growth or advancement." 

There is all the difference between the study of theology 
in books, at second hand, and in the Bible with original 
experience, that there is between a man's acquaintance 
with a romantic country, who goes straight through it in 
a rail-car, and his who travels as a pedestrian, over hill and 
valley, through city and hamlet, in meadows and by the 
river-side, calling at the peasant's door, visiting many a 
sweet nook and shady fountain, breathing the morning 
freshness, enjoying the sunset and the twilight, drinking in, 
at every step of the way, all the blessed influences of the 
air and the sunshine, and watching all the lovely and 
changeful aspects of the face of nature. There are excel- 
lent rail-carriages to ride through the Bible ; perhaps the 
human mind will never invent better ones than some that 
have been constructed. You may take passage in Calvin's 
Institutes, or Turretin, or, if you please, in Ridgley's body 
of divinity, or in Knapp, or in Storr and Flatt ; and assur- 



364 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

edly you cannot greatly err ; but all this richness and 
blessedness of personal experience, and all the triumph and 
delight of individual discovery, and all the romance, novelty 
and freshness of pedestrian excursions, and all the power, 
variety, and certainty of original knowledge, you must 
utterly forego. 

There is a stream artificially walled up in the valley of 
Saratoga, into which the healthful mineral waters of the 
various springs pour themselves off together, after welling 
up independently at the fountain head. Now, suppose the 
visitors at Saratoga, in search of health, should go to that 
running stream, and prefer the taste of it, telling you in 
what a perfect unity, in what a comprehensive, system, 
they receive the waters, by thus drinking of them ; and 
suppose that men should thus test their remedial excellence 
in their own complaints, and should profess to analyze the 
elemental fountains by the study of that stream, visiting 
the original sources now and then, but dwelling ordinarily 
at the brook, and drinking of it habitually ; these men 
would not unaptly represent the folly of a man, who should 
study the word of God, and form his opinions of its funda- 
mental truths, principally by the streams of theology that 
have sprung from it, by human systems and institutes. 

Even if the church universal could build a perfect con- 
duit, still would we never give up the right of private 
judgment, nor the duty of each student of the Scriptures 
to form his theology originally for himself. Let him go to 
the deep well-springs, the separate individual fountains in 
the Old and New Testaments, and let him drink their 
sparkling contents fresh and pure in the clearness of their 
original and individual dialects. Let him do this to form 
his own theology, or rather to make the theology of the 
Scriptures possess and imbue his soul. Let him do this to 
fill full and keep ever overflowing the fountain of his own 
experience, joyous and rich, strong and abundant. Let 
him do this, striving all the while mightily in prayer for 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 365 

that baptism of the Spirit, which alone can make the truths 
of Scripture his own powerful, original, life-giving expe- 
rience. This process makes a true, independent, biblical 
theologian ; entire dependence on the word and Spirit of 
God, entire independence of human systems as authorities. 
If we are not greatly mistaken, this course is taught and 
commanded in the Scriptures; and if the history of indi- 
vidual minds be not utterly erroneous, this course clothes 
the soul with power ; it makes the Christian a king and a 
priest unto God. It does this, just in proportion as he re- 
fuses every mediator between his own soul and the word 
of God; just in proportion as he receives in simplicity the 
engrafted word, which is able to save his soul; just in pro- 
portion as he lives upon it, and in his own spiritual con- 
flicts, in prayer and in profound meditation, and by the 
baptism of the Holy Spirit, makes its experience his own 
experience. This is power, wisdom, blessedness, glory. 
This comprehends all the elements of a missionary piety. 
"I had rather follow the shadow of Christ," said the noble 
Reformer and Martyr, Bishop Hooper, " than the body of 
all the general councils or doctors since the death of Christ. 
It is mine opinion unto all the world, that the Scripture 
solely, and the Apostles' church is to be followed, and no 
man's authority, be he Augustine, Tertullian, or even 
Cherubim or Seraphim." 

V. A fifth cause for the imitative cast of piety in this 
age, we take to be the prevalence of a philosophical system 
unfavorable to religious faith. Whatever throws the mind 
in upon itself, and the soul upon God, begets originality and 
power ; whatever throws it upon external supports and 
mediums of proof, weakens it. There are two principal 
things in philosophy — intuition and experience ; the first 
may be compared to a compass, the second to a chart. 
You may sail your ship a great way by the first, and 
yet throw her on the rocks, if you strive to make a harbor 
without the last. On the other hand, without the compass, 



366 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

the chart would be of little use to you ; for you might have 
a correct chart of the coast of Europe, and yet, without the 
compass, sail for years in a circle on the Atlantic, endeav- 
oring to find Europe. So it is with intuition and experi- 
ence ; if the denial of the last leaves you with nothing but 
terra incognita, the denial of the first leaves you without 
terra firma. A philosophy that denies the first, is like a 
fog in the atmosphere ; if you sail upon the ocean of truth 
in such a fog, you must either do it by the lead and line, 
till you might almost, from disuse, deny the existence of 
the compass, or, if you dash onward, you are as likely to 
strike a reef of rocks, as to get into the harbor. 

The prevalence of a philosophy that throws men upon 
external things, united with the experimental and physical 
spirit of this age, has tended to withdraw men's minds from 
the sublime and simple verities of God's word. An experi- 
mental tendency in one direction is infidelity ; in another 
it is faith. Confined to second causes, it is infidelity ; but 
if men would put experience as the standard in divine things, 
as they do in human, it would be well. AH true religion 
is experimental. Hence the course of infidelity is the most 
unphilosophical in the world, while to some extent its prin- 
ciple is perfectly wise and philosophical. It refuses to be- 
lieve, except on experience ; very well : but it refuses to 
try the experiment, nay, it would, if possible, destroy the 
experiment. A Brahmin was once persuaded by an Eng- 
lishman to look through a microscope at a vegetable, which 
constituted a favorite part of his diet. To the horror of the 
meat-abjuring Indian, he beheld whole herds of animals 
quietly browsing in their pastures, which he had been ac- 
customed to eat at a mouthful. He seized the instrument, 
in his anger, trod on it, and crushed it to pieces. So the 
world are very ready to do with demonstrations that they 
do not like, or that oppose their favorite systems, or show 
their sins. Infidelity and the Roman Catholic religion 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 



367 



would destroy, or keep out of sight, the heavenly instrument 
that exposes their own iniquity and error. 

This empirical spirit in divine things, exercised in dog- 
matism, but stopping short of faith, makes an age proud 
and critical, rather than humble and believing. There is a 
great difference between an age of belief and an age of 
criticism ; all the difference that there is between creative 
power and the power of judgment. An age of belief will 
be employed in creative operations, leaving the lower work 
of criticism to be performed by those who come after. An 
age of criticism is an age of doubt, and therefore of weak- 
ness, not of inborn power. It is an age of the preparation 
of rules, not of principles in action, in vivifying operation ; 
and so it is an age of the understanding of rules, not the 
consciousness of principles. Perhaps principles will even 
be denied, arid the rules of empiricism alone adopted. Just 
as if in medicine there should be an age of physicians formed 
in the apothecary's shop, by the study of formulas, symp- 
toms and cases, instead of the powers of nature, the laws 
of the human constitution, and the principles of things. It 
is not to be denied that such a set of men might go very 
far, might come to great perfection, in the knowledge and 
classification of symptoms, cases and cures ; it would be an 
age of great proficiency in diagnosis ; but do we not see 
that just in proportion to the perfection of such knowledge, 
if we stop there, we are at the greater distance from wisdom 
and power, from the seeds of things, and the elements of 
universality ? As in general an age of systems stops the 
discovery of new truth, so an age of criticism stops the 
search for it. Homer and Thucydides mark a creative 
age ; Quinctilian and Longinus, a critical one ; this is im- 
itative, artificial, that is original and spontaneous. 

In regard to the general subject of metaphysics, in con- 
nection with divinity, it is almost an undeniable truth, that 
in every age the predominant metaphysical opinions, the 
speculative philosophy in general acceptance, will influence 



368 



THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 



the theology, and so, in an incalculable degree, the piety of 
that age. The history of the church shows this, and some- 
times in a most melancholy demonstration. The possibility 
of articles of faith, their compatibility with the laws of rea- 
son, is to be determined on metaphysical principles. The 
question whether they are agreeable to reason, or contrary 
to it, or simply undiscoverable by it, will be determined ac- 
cording to a man's metaphysics. Now, if that science be 
one that in its first principles rejects the possibility of intui- 
tions of spiritual truths, the communion of the mind, through 
reason, with principles that could not be made known to it 
through the senses, then the consequence must be a denial 
of all mysterious truths in religion, of all truths that are 
above the reach of the unaided human understanding. " In 
each article of faith embraced on conviction, the mind de- 
termines, first, intuitively on its logical possibility ; secondly, 
discursively on its analogy to doctrines already believed, as 
well as on its correspondences to the wants and faculties of 
our nature ; and, thirdly, historically on the direct and in- 
direct evidences." Now, it is manifest that, if on meta- 
physical principles the first determination of the mind, in 
respect to any such article of faith, be, that it is a logical 
impossibility, all its historical evidence, and all its alleged 
correspondency to our wants, and analogy to other doctrines, 
will go for nothing. " The question," says Mr. Coleridge, 
" whether an assertion be in itself inconceivable, or only by 
us unimaginable, will be decided by each individual, accord- 
ing to the positions assumed as first principles in the meta- 
physical system which he had previously adopted. Thus 
the existence of the Supreme Reason, the creator of the 
material universe, involved a contradiction for a disciple of 
Epicurus ; while, on the contrary, to a Platonist the posi- 
tion is necessarily presupposed in every other truth, as that 
without which every fact of experience would involve a 
contradiction in reason." 

Just so a Unitarian denies the doctrine of the Trinity, as 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 369 

a metaphysical impossibility, setting a metaphysical lie above 
the verity of the Scriptures ; and, in general, a great cause 
of weakness and of lying doctrine in this age, is the march- 
ing of metaphysical speculations into regions where they do 
not belong. It is true that our philosophy, even where it 
is correct, is very short-sighted, and that in most cases, as 
the Indians say of the world that it rests first upon a moun- 
tain, then upon an elephant, and so on till they come to a 
tortoise, where they stop ; so it is with us in attempting to 
explain the mysteries of our being ; our philosophy generally 
ends with the tortoise. It is true, also, that the multitude, 
even of educated minds, receive metaphysical principles 
upon trust, without the least analysis of their nature, and 
with no perception of the extensive reach of their influence ; 
and in such cases, with the believer in God's word, where 
the received metaphysics are false, there is a happy and 
ignorant inconsistency between the false metaphysics and 
the spiritual faith. But still it is impossible that a false 
system of metaphysics should prevail, without exerting a 
powerful deteriorating influence over every province of mind 
and morals. The student and the Christian may never at 
any one moment be conscious of that influence, for that 
would be to see the falsehood of the system ; but the influ- 
ence is felt, and is the more powerful for being impercep- 
tible, unsuspected, and, therefore, unresisted. It is an ele- 
ment of deterioration in the presence of every spiritual truth, 
depriving it of half its power ; an influence that insensibly 
stupefies the mind itself, and dwarfs all its productions. 
You may not notice it while within its circle ; but just re- 
move into another atmosphere, and you will see what you 
have been suffering and what you have been losing. It is 
like being shut up for hours in a close, ill-ventilated, and 
crowded lecture-room ; the air becomes very impure, but 
you, being accustomed to it, hardly notice the impurity, nor 
the deleterious influence over your system, till you go out 
into the fresh atmosphere ; and then if you should again re- 

16* 



370 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

turn into the room, where so many lungs have been respir- 
ing till the vital properties of the air have been almost ex- 
hausted, you could not endure it. So it is with the inju- 
rious influence which a prevailing false system of meta- 
physics will inevitably exert over the student's mind. The 
sublimities of the gospel itself will be deprived of half their 
grandeur, and in that unwholesome vapor, everything will 
be pallid, meagre, lifeless, and cold. The clouds raised 
around the truths of the gospel through the medium of 
grovelling metaphysical speculations are not, as in the natu- 
ral atmosphere, converted into glorious shapes, reflecting the 
sun's glory. They darken the truth, and it looks through 
them, shorn of its beams. The power of self-evidence that 
belongs to the things of religion is taken away, and the 
truth, instead of commanding assent in all the absolute 
majesty of the Supreme Reason, timidly and doubtfully en- 
treats admittance to the heart. It cannot be otherwise, if 
the truths of theology grow up into a metaphysical system 
that in its first principles, if logically pressed, denies their 
possibility. The denial may not be open, may not be ob- 
served, but the deteriorating influence will certainly be ex- 
erted. And so sure as there is discernment enough to see 
that influence, combined with a sceptical disposition, the 
skepticism in the heart will take refuge in the metaphysics 
of the understanding, and there manufacture and thence 
send forth its attacks against the elements of spiritual faith. 
Thus it is that infidel speculations, grounded on false meta- 
physical premises, and concocted in the closet by specula- 
tive men, have found their way to the hearts of a common 
multitude, who know nothing about metaphysics, good or 
bad, except the name, but take the scepticism as the per- 
fection of reason and common sense. 

Now, we say that anything which weakens the power of 
self-evidence in the gospel must inevitably exert a disas- 
trous influence over our piety ; and if there have been 
such an ingredient in the prevalent philosophy of this age, 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 371 

this is one cause for our want of originality and experi- 
ence. 

VI. A sixth cause why the piety of this age is weak 
and imitative, is to be found in the neglect and ignorance 
of the doctrine of justification by faith. We do not know 
of a single evangelical doctrine that has suffered such sad 
oversight. Perhaps one reason may be, that we have been 
occupied with controversies for other truths, and with 
enemies in other parts of the citadel, so frequently as to 
forget this danger ; but whatever be the cause, we have 
well-nigh forgotten the doctrine, and to depart from it is to 
exhaust the very fountain of strength in our spiritual being. 
The life of the doctrine of the blessed reformers, and the 
light of their existence, was their experimental knowledge 
of this truth, which we know so partially. We have looked 
upon it too much as a negative speculation ; they regarded 
it as a positive life ; we study it, they possessed it ; we 
acknowledge it, and put it in our creeds ; they lived by it, 
and died for it. The consequence is, that it energizes all 
their productions ; from this cause alone their spirit and style 
are as different from the inert prettinesses of this age, as 
the transfiguration by Raphael from a modern lithographic 
engraving of the same, or as a great Gothic Cathedral from 
a gingerbread wooden imitation. We know not what we 
lose, nor how far we die, when we lose the spirit of this 
doctrine. The church is devoted to destruction, if this 
grace goes out of the temple ; and we may almost hear 
our guardian angels mournfully whispering, Let us depart 
hence. As the atonement is the central doctrine of the 
Gospel, so an experimental knowledge of justification by 
faith is the central grace in the heart of the Christian and 
the church. If it be out of place, all other graces will 
hang loosely ; if it be deficient, all other graces will wither 
and waste as by a slow poison. In the piety of this age it 
is deficient ; it is out of place, pushed from its office ; in 
some quarters it is disowned, and well-nigh annihilated ; 



372 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

everywhere there is great ignorance and inexperience of it; 
and the consequence is, that on the one hand sanctification 
is exalted into a Saviour, and on the other, formalists and 
priests and admirers of gilded crosses, despising sanctifi- 
cation and justification almost alike, are busily vamping 
up the trumpery of Popery in its stead. Instead of this 
reigning and radiant truth presented and developed, they 
chant to us the Io Psean of a baptismal regeneration, with 
candles at noonday, and fish on Friday ; they sing to us 
delicately about the sacred beauty of the observance of 
sacred days, and sacred rites and ordinances. With what 
energy would Paul have rebuked this spirit ! What ? he 
would say, hath Christ, at such expense of blood, set you 
free from the destruction of the Man of Sin ; and will ye 
again pass under the accursed yoke ? Will ye enter your 
prison-house of will-worship, to grind in its filthy dungeons ? 
How, turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, 
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ? Ye observe 
days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of 
you. Behold I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, 
Christ shall profit you nothing : ye are fallen from grace. 

But it is not those alone, who would worship the cross 
instead of the crucified Saviour, the altar instead of the 
altar's God, that have abjured this doctrine, or betrayed it 
into the hands of its enemies ; it is we all, just in pro- 
portion to our neglect and inexperience of its life-giving 
power. And this inexperience is great ; and every man 
who has anything to do with the admission of candidates 
to the church of Christ, will have to deplore that this in- 
experience of this life-giving truth has become almost the 
type of piety in our new converts, so that you may perhaps 
find a greater ignorance of this than of any other doctrine 
in the Scriptures. But is this the preparation which is 
needed in a missionary age, which should characterize the 
piety of an age that hopes to accomplish the world's regen- 
eration ? We need a new baptism in the fire of individual 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 373 

scriptural truth, but more than all, in the foe of this truth 
of justification by faith. Doubtless, there is a power in his 
doctrine, which will annihilate every form of Romanism ; but 
it must be felt, in order to be used. Was it exhausted at 
the Reformation, when we saw it flash so gloriously ? 
Why does it not flash with equal glory now, when its 
power is equally needed ? It did but half its work, it 
disclosed but half its energy. Perhaps «ne great reason 
why, under God, such a resurrection of refined and gilded 
formalism is now permitted, and such an exaltation of 
The Church, in the place of Christ, is to call all true 
Christians, by the very emergency, back to the rock and 
refuge of this doctrine. It is to make Chrisfs-men instead 
of Church-men. And sure we are, that if Luther were 
now on earth to publish again this element of his power, 
with the freshness of his burning experience, to pour it 
from the depths of his full heart as from a church organ, 
accustomed as we are to think that we know all about it, 
it would stir Christendom now with almost as much en- 
thusiasm, and with almost as great a convulsion, as it did 
then. 

When we look at the discipline through which Luther 
and some other men passed, in their baptism with the fire 
of this doctrine, it seems that we do but dream about it, 
that we know nothing of it, that we are like men walking 
and talking in our sleep — a race of religious somnambulists. 
Indeed, without this burning experience, what are we doing, 
where is our efficiency ? We are no better than petrified 
monks, and might almost as well be thrown back into 
past darkness, and with St. Anthony be employed in 
preaching to the fishes of the Atlantic. We might as well 
he hooded and cowled and shrouded in the cells of some 
old monastery, employed in doing penance, wearing sack- 
cloth shirts, telling our beads, and ascending Pilate's stair- 
case. The indomitable Luther himself once set out to do 
this upon his knees ; and it was a great crisis of his being ; 



374 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

for he had got about half way up, when there came a voice 
of thunder into his soul, The just shall live by Faith ! 
and it scared him effectually and forever from his penance. 
There are numbers in our day who are ascending Pilate's 
staircase ; some in forms and ceremonies, and apostolical 
successions, and hatred of conventicles, and kneelings to 
bishops, and Christless worship of the church, and contempt 
and persecution of all beyond their narrow sect, and open 
and avowed hatred of justification by faith ; and others in 
the forgetfulnesss, disregard, and inexperience of this blessed 
doctrine. Would to God that such a voice from heaven 
might enter into every man's soul ; but even if it did, it 
would do no good, without something of Luther's deep 
spiritual experience, gathered in conflict and prayer. 

We need it ; we all need it ; it is the want of this that 
forms the chracteristic palsy of the piety of this age. With 
this living experience of Christ's truth, and so many 
Christians in motion under it, no false form of religion 
could stand before the church for a moment. We need it 
as ministers of the gospel, in our common, ordinary preach- 
ing. We need it to have any power whatever in the con- 
version of men. We need it, to have our new converts 
baptized into it, instead of the spirit of indolence and 
worldly conformity. We need it, in order to preach from 
feeling instead of imitation. We need it, to break up the 
reign of custom, and to let in upon the soul the unwonted 
freshness of a first love. 

May God in mercy baptize every one of us with this 
spirit. May the church possess it. May the spirit and 
power of justification by faith take hold upon us ! Then 
will the final conflict of the Gospel against Romanism, 
against Formalism, be a short conflict indeeed ; but a more 
glorious triumph of God's word and Spirit than the world 
has ever witnessed. 

A point growing out of this last named cause for the 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 375 

want of experimental originality in the piety of this age, is 
the imagined discovery of a royal road to heaven. We 
are very desirous of believing that we can live at ease, and 
yet gain that experience which other men gathered only by 
conflict and prayer. We should like to possess the power- 
ful experience of faith which Luther possessed, and which 
in general characterized the age of the Reformers ; but we 
are not willing to undergo that intense, soul-trying, spiritual 
discipline, which he had to pass through in gaining it. It 
is the mistake of this age to make of religion a thing of 
comfort and ease, instead of self-mortification and labor. 
We forget that in its very essence, religion is a thing of 
discipline, self-mortifying discipline, and that the principle 
of vicarious suffering is the one by which the world is to 
be converted to Christ, just as certainly as it is that in 
which was laid the very foundations of the world's redemp- 
tion. Hence the Church that draws back from the baptism 
of suffering, is not the church that can be instrumental in 
this world's regeneration ; and if the church in our age 
be doing this, if self-indulgence be the mark of our piety, 
it is as clear as noonday that not to us has the glorious 
commission been vouchsafed of accomplishing the promises 
of God, and not to us will the glory ever be granted of 
ushering in this consummation. It was the beautiful lan- 
guage of the poet Cowper, wrung from him by his own 
experience of anguish, 

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. 

We believe that this must not only be the experience of 
every individual Christian in getting to heaven, but that 
the church by which the world's regeneration shall be ac- 
complished, will be a church baptized with suffering, or 
what will answer the same purpose, distinguished for vol- 
untary self-denial. If we reject this, it is no wonder that 
our piety is destitute of originality and vital power ; we 



376 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

are rejecting that which, in a world of fallen beings, con- 
stitutes, in the very nature of things, the only source of 
power. Death, said Mr. Coleridge, only supplies the oil for 
the inextinguishable lamp of life. This great truth is true 
even before our mortal dissolution ; that death to self which 
trial produces, constituting, even in this world, the very 
essence of strength, life, and glory. 

Some men think that heaven is growing up on earth, a 
gradual amelioration and melting of earth into heaven, so 
that by and by half the Bible will get obsolete, because 
self-denial and affliction will no longer be the custom of our 
pilgrimage. The truth is, there never could be such a 
state of external things, as that fallen beings could be pu- 
rified and refined without burning and filing. If we carry 
not heaven within us, external peace and beauty will never 
produce it ; and heaven within us is to be wrought in the 
midst of our corruption only by trial and suffering ; and 
even then, without continued discipline, the very piety of 
the church would cream and mantle like a stagnant pool. 

We are aware that the analysis of causes which we have 
attempted is exceedingly imperfect, and certainly it might 
be pursued much farther with interest and profit. One or 
two conclusions, from our investigation, are of sufficient 
importance to lay up for consideration, if not to dwell upon 
now. And first, it is very evident that a missionary spirit 
is the only safe-guard and guarantee of a sound theology. 
If any church or any body of men undertake to keep their 
spiritual privileges to themselves, to arrogate an exclusive 
possession of them, or to release themselves from the claims 
of Christian stewardship and self-denial for others, they 
will find them putrefying and rotting on their hands, with 
a brood of vipers generated in the midst of them, a thou- 
sandfold worse than the stinking worms which the Israel- 
ites found in their hoarded manna. The very coriander- 
seed of heaven will not keep from corruption, if men keep 
it to themselves. Our religion and our theology would be 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 377 

a Dead Sea, in which the fish would die, and nothing but 
the slime and pitch of metaphysics, and erroneous and be- 
wildering speculations, would float upon the surface, if the 
rippling waters of a missionary piety did not flow through 
it. The epistles of the Apostles themselves would have 
been full of thorns and weeds and poisons, if their piety 
had not been of such a nature as to provide that the Acts 
of the Apostles should precede and accompany the Letters. 
The acrid humors and imposthumes of monastic supersti- 
tions would have broken out ages before they did, and the 
first Pope would have been elected not at Rome, but at Je- 
rusalem. 

And we may add, as another conclusion, that a mission- 
ary spirit, as it is necessary to preserve the church from 
the despotism of error and of dogmatism, so it is the foun- 
dation of individual originality and power. Not even the 
word of God, nor the study of the word of God, will keep 
men from error, if the heart be not fall of love, and thirst- 
ing after God's knowledge. The truths of the gospel are 
not to be discovered but by moral discipline, by a hard fol- 
lowing of the soul after God ; at any rate, not so to be 
discovered as to become the elements of power. No man 
could be a painter by seeing Raphael put on his colors ; no 
man could be a musician by seeing Apollo himself play 
upon his pipe ; no man could be a chemist by reading Sir 
Humphrey Davy's dissertations ; and no man can be a 
theologian by the mere study of the Scriptures. He has 
not only to labor with the understanding, but to labor with 
the heart, in prayer. It is the want of this latter labor, 
that makes the piety of this age imitative and external. It 
produces individual darkness and weakness, even in the 
midst of learning. Most admirably doth Lord Bacon re- 
mark that " it was most aptly said by one of Plato's school, 
1 that the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the 
sun, which, as we see, openeth and revealeth all the terres- 
trial globe, but then again it obscureth and concealeth the 



378 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

stars and celestial globe : so doth the sense discover natural 
things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up divine.' ' And 
hence it is true that it hath proceeded that divers learned 
men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up 
to the secrets of the Deity, by the waxen wings of the 
senses.' " The truth is, it is only in God's light, that we 
can see the light. Who has not known this in his own ex- 
perience ? But God's light never comes without love ; and 
there is a light of the understanding merely, which utterly 
fails to convince. Lord Bacon commends the lumen sic- 
cum of Heraclitus, as preferable to that lumen madidum or 
maceratum, which is " steeped and infused in the humors 
of the affections ;" and this, with great truth, applied to 
men's personal passions and cares. But in reference to 
God, there is a lumen siccum, a dry light, in which the 
mind dies for want of moisture ; the fervor of the affections 
constituting the only medium of salutary communication 
with certain truths, of believing communion with them. 
If this be absent, and yet the soul be carried into the at- 
mosphere of such truths, it is quite intolerable. It is the 
business of devils ; and Milton has well set the wandering 
spirits of hell, in their sadness and pain, to metaphysical 
reasoning upon themes that can no more be handled with- 
out pain by a heart not at peace with God, than a man 
could take coals of fire in his hand and not be burned. The 
highest atmosphere of thought, to apply a physical image 
from this great poet, u burns frore, and cold performs the 
effect of heat," unless it be a region irradiated by the love 
of God. There is the same result to the soul, which Hum- 
boldt experienced in the body, when ascending into a moun- 
tain air so thin and rarefied that the lungs labored spasmodi- 
cally, and the blood almost started from the pores. 

To the same purpose, Lord Bacon again says, that " the 
quality of knowledge, if it be taken without the corrective 
thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or malignity, and 
some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or swelling. 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 379 

The corrective spice," he adds, " the mixture whereof 
maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity, as saith the 
Apostle." In speaking of certain writings, which acted in 
no slight degree to prevent his mind from being imprisoned 
within the outlines of any single dogmatic system, Mr. 
Coleridge presents a similar idea, with a vividness which is 
truly startling. " They contributed," says he, " to keep 
alive the heart in the head ; gave me an indistinct, yet 
stirring and working presentiment, that all the products of 
the mere reflective faculty partook of death, and were as 
the rattling twigs and sprays in winter, into which a sap 
was yet to be propelled from some root to which I had not 
yet penetrated, if they were to afford my soul either food 
or shelter." 

That root, we believe, was Christ. And now let me 
add that there are some truths, of essential importance to 
the world's becoming better, of which we venture to say, 
no man can have such a belief as to constitute any power 
in the use of them, without much acquaintance with God 
in Christ. Take for example, the very universally ac- 
knowledged truth of the eternal damnation of wicked souls. 
There is no man that can believe this truth, especially as 
applied to the heathen, with anything more than the belief 
of assent and of custom, with the unassailable belief of 
power, without seeing and feeling the holiness of God ; and 
the holiness of God is not to be seen and felt, without a 
close walk with God. Not one of God's attributes is to be 
known without heart-labor, and yet it is in the knowledge 
of God's attributes, that all sound theology consists. And 
this truth, of which we have spoken, is at the very founda- 
tion of the whole missionary enterprise. 

I wish now to beg your attention to one more conclu- 
sion, which, as those who hear me are young men, and as 
we are parts of a young nation, cannot but sink down deep 
into our minds, and I would hope may happily influence 
our own self-discipline. It is, that in the life of individ- 



380 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

uals and of nations, the provision of the materials of origi- 
nality, experience, and power in the character, is confined 
for the most part to a particular and an early period. 

" The child is father of the man." 

Our great modern poet has put this great truth into a 
child's ballad, but it is for men to reflect upon. In the 
development whether of individuals or of nations it is true. 
The early studies of genius are wrought into the mind like 
beautiful pictures traced in sympathetic ink, and they 
afterwards come out into view in the influence they exert 
in all the mind's productions. The first studies of Rem- 
brandt affected his after labors ; that peculiarity of shadow, 
which marks all his pictures, originated in the circum- 
stance of his father's mill receiving light from an aperture 
at the top, which habituated that artist afterwards to view 
all objects as if seen in that magical light. What is thus 
true in the course of individuals, is as true, on a vast scale, 
in the development of the literature and character of 
nations. 

Now our practice of the science of self-culture and self- 
discipline is to too great a degree extemporaneous and late ; 
nor do we sufficiently avail ourselves of others' experience. 
It is certainly important to discover what has been the 
nourishment of other minds, and then to apply your knowl- 
edge. It is not certain that the same discipline, through 
which Burke or Coleridge passed, would be as good for 
other minds as for theirs ; but there must have been some 
qualities in their mental culture, some processes in their 
growth and development, which, discovered and applied by 
us, would be useful. For example, if Mr. Coleridge tells 
us that in early life he found in certain rare and neglected 
volumes, some trains of thought that set him powerfully to 
thinking, you may be quite sure that the same excitement 
would be favorable to a susceptible and growing mind now. 
But it may happen that the seed which will grow in one 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 381 

patch of ground will not in another. You may raise a 
good crop of potatoes where you cannot raise wheat, and 
the soil that will bear a wheat crop one year, will do 
better laid out in corn and melons the next. Now nature 
seems to require somewhat the same alterations in the cul- 
tivation of mind ; at any rate there is no monotony. An 
age of great classical erudition may be succeeded by an age 
of deep philosophy, or these both by an age of physical sci- 
ence and railroads ; and you may not be able, without 
difficulty, to trace the laws or causes of this change. If 
you cut down a forest of pines, there will spring up in its 
place a growth of the oak or the maple. So in the world's 
mind there are the germs of many developments, to which 
external accidents may give birth, some in one age, some 
in another. There is a singular analogy between the 
goings on of life in the natural and in the moral world, and 
nature many times suggests lessons which she does not 
directly teach. Nature is suggestive in her teachings ; 
and so is the word of God ; and so is everything that in its 
teachings at the same time awakens and disciplines the 
mind. 

But there is a period, after which even suggestive teach- 
ings and suggestive books lose their power. There is a 
germinating period, a period in which a good book goes 
down into the soul, as a precious seed into a moist furrow 
of earth in the spring, and germinates ; a new growth 
springs from it. It is different from knowledge ; it becomes 
the mind's own, and is reproduced in a form of originality ; 
its principles become seeds in a man's being, and by and 
by blossom and fructify. This, I say, is a particular period, 
and it does not last. A man who has passed it may read 
the same book and know it perfectly ; the acquisition of 
knowledge goes on through life ; but knowledge as life, 
knowledge as the creator of wisdom, not so. It is all the 
difference between an oak set out, and one that grows from 
the acorn. I have in my mind some volumes which have 



382 THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, 

exerted a refreshing and inspiring power over many young 
minds, but with older ones the power does not seem to exist ; 
it is like putting a magnet to a lump of clay. Except a 
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; 
and so, except a good book fall into the soul and die, it 
abideth alone ; and the time in which a good book thus dies 
in the soul, is particular and analogous to the spring tide 
of the seasons. An ear of corn may fall into the ground 
and die in midsummer ; but it will not be reproduced ; and 
just so with books and principles in men's mind : if the 
sowing of them be deferred till the midsummer or autumn 
of the soul, though they may enrich the soil, they will not 
produce a harvest ; there may be the green blade, but the 
full corn in the ear you will never see. 

So also it is with the seeds and habits of our piety ; our 
character and attainments, not only in this world, but in 
eternity, will be the fruits of the germination of divine things 
in our souls now. 

Let me pray you, therefore, to take care of the germi- 
nating period of your being ; for when you have passed 
through it, though you may have the same books to read, 
and the same means of study, they will not affect you as 
they once would. There is a tide in the deep souls of men, 
as well as in their affairs, which, taken at the flood, leads 
on to fortune ; and if you omit it, the loss and the misery 
will be yours. Suffer me now to leave your minds beneath 
the influence of one more aphorism from the wisdom of 
Lord Bacon. u For if you will have a tree bear more fruit 
than it hath used to do, it is not anything you can do to 
the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting 
new mould about the roots, that must work it." And if 
we might add one recipe as to the sort of mould you would 
do well to apply, we would say, take the study of Butler's 
Analogy, South's Sermons, (avoiding his hatred of the 
Puritans,) Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Burke's 
Character and Works, John Foster's Essays, and (bating 



AND THAT OF IMITATION. 383 

his erroneous views of the atonement) Coleridge's Friend, 
and Aids to Reflection. This is but a single formula ; you 
well know the catalogue might be greatly varied and en- 
larged ; and different men will put down different authors, 
according to their own idiosyncracies. But we speak now 
of suggestive works ; and the Latin proverb is worth re- 
membering, Beware of the man of one book. 



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